Wanna know who doesn't mind high gas prices? A group of oil executives who have pledged more than $200 million to help elect Mitt Romney.
Gene Karpinski and Bill Burton write in a Politico editorial that high gas prices lead to big profits for oil companies, who then give money to Romney.
What does Big Oil get in return for its $200 million investment in Romney? It gets to keep its billions in special tax breaks every year. So middle-class families pay twice — high gas prices when they fill up the tank and $4 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies for an industry where the top five companies combined made $137 billion in profits last year.
At the same time, Big Oil gets one of its own dictating Romney’s energy policy. Harold Hamm, Romney’s top energy adviser, is a billionaire oil executive who says clean energy is a “magical fantasy” and wants high gas prices. He admitted as much when he declared in 2009 that cheap oil would be a “disaster.”
For Romney, protecting oil company profits seems to be one of the few issues he is passionate about. At a recent town hall meeting, Romney responded to a question about high gas prices by asserting that efforts to reduce the billions in tax breaks for big oil companies are “dangerous.”
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