I logged this morning to check my web mail. After doing so, I subsequently found a story that was carried by my ISP about how the price of crude oil is falling, but that the price of gasoline at the pump has been slowly going up.
So what's the deal? The article did a somewhat decent job of describing the overall situation of what's happening in the worldwide oil markets, or at least not a bad job for a journalistic article, but at the end of the article there were a pair of statements that were made by two people interviewed for the story.
"Drivers are being ripped off even more now than before," said Stuart Pollok, who was filling up recently at a Chevron station in downtown Los Angeles. He pointed out Exxon Mobil Corp. reeled in billions in profits last year when oil prices neared $150.
Others see the conspiracy reaching higher.
"It got really low during the elections and now it's going back up," said Christel Sayegh, a 23-year-old graphic designer in Los Angeles. "They do that every election, though, right?"
In response to both Mr. Pollok's wailing about Exxon's obscene profits and to the young graphic designer's conspiracy oriented view of the world, I present an article that was written in this past week's U.S. News and World Report by Robert Bryce about how Exxon paid $116 billion in taxes in 2008. That's right gentle readers. Exxon made an immoral and obscene $45 billion in profits in 2008, but the corporation's overall tax bill in 2008 was - oh well - only a petty $116 billion or 2.5 times as much.
Exxon of course is the largest privately held Big Evil Oil Company in the Big Evil Oil industry. However, as everyone knows there are plenty of other companies in the oil and gas industry that are also paying untold billions of dollars every year in taxes to governments of all stripes.
I posted this message to an Internet discussion group that I belong to and got a response back from a well known guy in the transit industry:
That headline – Exxon’s 2008 tax bill was $116 billion – reminded me of something I was just working on.
From Federal Highway Statistics, Table HF-10, “Funding for Highways and Disposition of Highway-user Revenues, All Units of Government, 2006,” the Grand Total Receipts, from all sources, was $161.061 billion.
That $161 billion includes:
Motor Fuel and Vehicle Taxes $85.540 billion
Tolls 8.108 billion
Property Taxes and Assessments 8.599 billion
General Fund Appropriations 25.979 billion
Other Taxes and Fees 9.878 billion
Investment Income 9.512 billion
Bond Issue Proceeds 17.828 billion
(It does NOT include road use fees not used for roads, including:
Nonhighway purposes $ 8.794 billion
Mass Transportation 10.520 billion
Collection Expenses 3.218 billion
Used for Territories .245 billion)
OK, not that I have done my accounting busy work for the day, what this means is that the amount of taxes paid by Exxon-Mobil for 2008 was about 72% of the entire spending on U.S. Roads in 2006.
Now, Exxon-Mobil is the largest oil company, but it sure isn’t the ONLY oil company that pays U.S. taxes, and while there are a lot of different uses for oil, transportation uses (ALL modes) is two-thirds of U.S. oil use, and I think it is not unreasonable to believe that road use of oil for transportation is the biggest share of that.
You folks have heard me whine before about FHWA not including most fuel sales taxes into the computation above.
So, when someone tells you that roads don’t pay their way, here is another thing to bring into the analysis.
Sigh...
Wizard
This month's Houston Lifestyles magazine has a story on the last page of its dead tree edition (the online version of the story can be read here) which has both a fascinating perspective on Houston's historical experience with buses and trolleys, as well as a link to a wonderful, must see website on Houston's history put together by the Sloane Gallery.
To wit, here is what Houston Lifestyles and the Sloane Gallery had to say about the bus and rail issue:
It seems that every year we are presented with a new light rail expansion proposal. In 1923 the city of Houston enacted a plan to remove the trolley tracks on Main Street. The removal was completed in 1925 much to the delight of merchants and pedestrians. It was evident that a train running down Main Street did nothing to help the hundreds of retail shops that lined the boulevard. Today, we have a train on Main Street and a virtual ghost town of retail blight to go with it.
snip...
History provides us with ample evidence that rail is a successful way of moving people and freight. Unfortunately, history also illustrates how politicians refuse to take into consideration the hard learned lessons of the past in regards to rail placement.
I would correct the well meaning sentiments expressed by the good folks at both Houston Lifestyles and at the Sloane Gallery. The powers that be at Metro, as well as the rail constituency, knew damned well what they were doing. They knew that they had to run rail lines in every direction simply because in order to get the 2003 Metro Solutions election to pass muster at the ballot box, they had to promise something to each and every last constituency in Metro's 1285 square mile, far flung service area. That not only included building rail lines in every direction, it also meant promising new park and rides everywhere, more HOV lanes, 50 percent more bus service, etc. All of this was to be done, of course, without having to resort to raising taxes.
Addendum: Read this epistle from Swamplot about the $14 million subsidized Houston Pavillions project, which is located right on Main Street along the Metro rail line.
Sigh...
Wizard
On January 29th, 2009, John and Mary Jane O'Fiel, members of the Floodway Coalition of Houston, won a round in their legal battle with the City of Houston over whether the City's changing of Chapter 19-43 of the City ordinance code, governing floodways, constituted a taking of the O'Fiels' property. Briefly, the City tried to argue to the appeals court that the courts had no say in the matter, something known as arguing a plea to the jurisdiction. What the court told the City was that no, the court denied this plea to the City.
The case was argued in the Texas First District Court of Appeals. In reading the Court's ruling, the City effectively argued that since the O'Fiels had not actually done anything with their property, in other words that they had not applied for any permits, that the O'Fiels had not exhausted the administrative remedies available to them at that time. Ergo, it then followed that the O'Fiels' case was not ripe. The Court did not buy the City's argument.
The Wizard believes that the City was trying to shutdown the case altogether, delaying any legal proceedings for years and trying to wear down the O'Fiels in court. Fortunately the Courts have denied that to the City. The legal proceedings on the Floodway takings issue progress.
More to come.
Wizard