Rep. Mike Pompeo tells Newsmax that Congress has “wasted a lot of your money” attempting to pick the “next great energy source.”
The Kansas Republican made the comment during an exclusive interview with Newsmax in advance of a news conference on Capitol Hill today where he appeared with GOP Sens. Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, and Ron Johnson to promote a bill repealing all energy-specific tax credits.
DeMint, of South Carolina, and Lee, of Utah, introduced the Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act last month. Pompeo introduced corresponding legislation in the House. Along with ending sector specific loopholes, tax breaks and subsidies, the bill calls for an overall reduction in the corporate tax rate.
“We have got to get out of this business of picking winners and losers,” Pompeo told Newsmax.
“The free market economy works when everyone competes on a level playing field and works to provide Americans with the best, lowest-cost products. The ultimate solution is to create a true flat tax that ends all corporate welfare, and this is a significant first step,” DeMint wrote in a statement.”
“The waste and futility of our current energy policies are demonstrated time and time again, from the backfiring of ethanol mandates to the bankruptcies of favored companies like Solyndra to the utterly inexplicable rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline,” Lee explained when the bill was first released.
Thursday’s push for support of the legislation comes on the same day President Barack Obama called for an end to oil industry tax breaks during a speech in New Hampshire. Obama and Senate Democrats plan to focus a lot of attention on big oil companies, whose profits have historically increased when oil prices spike, The Hill reported.
But Pompeo said the president’s plan would wind up costing consumers a lot of money since it does not include a corresponding reduction in the corporate tax rate like the Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act does.
“I know precisely what it is he’s chasing . . . If we did what the president proposed. It would absolutely reduce the investment in energy here in North America and decrease supply. It’s simple econ 101. It would increase price pretty dramatically,” Pompeo said.
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