The oil and gas industry paid, as recently as 2009, nearly $36 billion in corporate income taxes, a value roughly equal to 10% of the Federal government’s non-defense discretionary spending.

Moreover, the Tax Foundation estimates that, between 1981 and 2008, the oil and gas industry paid $1.45 in those corporate income taxes for every dollar of profit earned domestically.

On top of this, President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal contains tax increases that would drive the tax bite up by an additional $44 billion over the next 10 years—Executive Office accounting—or by $85 billion, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

On the other hand, the tax bite for the nuclear power industry is nearly a dollar of American taxpayers’ money paid to the nuclear power companies for every profit dollar those companies earn.  Wind power companies get from us taxpayers payments of $1.64 for every dollar of profit, and solar power companies hit us up for $2.45 for every dollar of profit.  Green energy, indeed.

Who is it that’s not paying its “fair share?”  Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Obama claim to have seen the light and “no longer share that view” concerning rising gasoline prices, and presumably the pricing of oil and gas generally out of our economy.

Who can believe them in the face of these facts?