Illinois to Tax Offshore Drilling?

As if Illinois isn't already the political and economic laughingstock of the country, Governor Quinn is proposing to provide reason for infamy-- a tax on offshore drilling. You know all those oil rigs in Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River that we have "offshore", right? Per the Republic:

Gov. Pat Quinn believes oil rigs off U.S. shores may be key to saving Illinois about $75 million a year.  

The Democrat touched on an unusual proposal during his budget address Wednesday: requiring companies that drill in the outer continental shelf and profit from doing business in Illinois to pay a share of a corporate income tax in the state. He said doing so would close a tax code loophole. 

"For too long, we've had a revenue code that looks like Swiss cheese, with plenty of loopholes for the powerful. Many of these loopholes are based on politics, not economics," he said before legislators. "Why does Illinois give big oil companies the privilege of declaring their oil derricks in the Gulf of Mexico to be foreign countries?"

What does the state of Illinois have to do with the Gulf of Mexico? Well, some argue that the Outer Continental Shelf, underwater land that does not belong any state, but to the federal government. Why doesn't Governor Quinn then claim the treasures from the wreckage of the Titanic which could be claimed as an extension of the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf?

How can closing a supposed tax loophole be considered a savings to the state? Savings come from decreasing spending, not from increasing revenue. Additionally, this proposal provide no savings to the people of Illinois who would pay higher fuel prices. That is in addition to the fuel taxes we pay that are 5th highest in the country. If Governor Quinn wants to really talk about savings--be it the hard earned money of Illinoisans or his own job, he should consider repealing the income and corporate tax hike he signed into law last year.

H/T Illinois Review

Governor Palin Warned Us

Earlier this month marked the second anniversary of the Governor Palin's well delivered, prescient RNC speech. During a segment of her speech, Governor Palin sounded the warning bell by laying out a myriad of things that then candidate Obama stood against and a litany of things that candidate Obama would do if elected, as WilsonPickett recently highlighted. Unfortunately for our country, Governor's Palin's prescience has been proven, and now President Obama has accomplished many of the things that Governor Palin had warned about two years ago, as shown in the text from her speech from 2008. The normal text are Governor Palin's words from her RNC speech, and the bold text shows how Governor Palin's predictions about an Obama presidency have actually come to fruition:

This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign. President Obama has given a speech on the war in Afghanistan at West Point without mentioning the word "victory" once. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot — what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ..During his administration, government has taken greater control over the car (to be fair, this was in conjunction with Bush's earlier work, but supported by President Obama), healthcare, finance and student loan industries... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world President Obama desires to reduce our nuclear arsenal while also making cuts to our missile defense program. America needs more energy ... our opponent is against producing it. President Obama has doubled down on a jobs killing drilling moratorium in spite of court rejection.

Victory in Iraq is finally in sight ... he wants to forfeit.

Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay ... he wants to meet them without preconditions.

Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America. Both the Christmas day bomber and Time Square bomber, while both thankfully unsuccessful, had ties to al-Qaeda ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights? Both men were read Miranda Rights. Government is too big ... he wants to grow it.

Congress spends too much ... he promises more. See Porkulus I, II, and III for starters.

Taxes are too high ... he wants to raise them. His tax increases are the fine print in his economic plan, and let me be specific.

The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes ... raise payroll taxes ... raise investment income taxes ... raise the death tax ... raise business taxes ... and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.See here, here, and here for a small taste. My sister Heather and her husband have just built a service station that's now opened for business — like millions of others who run small businesses.

How are they going to be any better off if taxes go up? Or maybe you're trying to keep your job at a plant in Michigan or Ohio ... or create jobs with clean coal from Pennsylvania or West Virginia ... or keep a small farm in the family right here in Minnesota.How are you going to be better off if our opponent adds a massive tax burden to the American economy?

She warned us:




--This post is a tag team effort from Stacy Drake and Whitney Pitcher. Thank you to Stacy for her suburb video editing skills.

Crossposted here and here.