So. With yesterday’s farcical Senate theater, the brain-trust begs a very basic question:

“Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who presided over the hearing [said] ‘Businesses should make a profit. That’s what drives our economy. But do these profitable companies need taxpayer subsidies?’”

Huh. Sen. Baucus, you come out in the black, and every year, too. And it’s fair to say, you are somewhat subsidized by the taxpayer, non? The salary, of course. The car. The driver. Retirement lucre. The trips to and from the office and your home. Often, that’s ‘homes’.

Biiiiig taxpayer-subsidized (actually, provided) budget to underwrite  your work, which of course does nothing so harmful as produce a product driving our economy. More like slowing it down, if fiddling here and there in hope of engineering outcomes desired by your political class along the way.

Then there are the junkets, and for those you may bring with you. The per diems. The mail costs to promote yourself. Then there’s that health insurance. Yep. Really something when someone, who could pay for these things without the taxpayer propping it up, has hard-working people foot the bill for doing his business.

And as a result you’re now worth …ok, well, there’s a little confusion here, with you having reported a negative net worth, while buying a $900,000 home.

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On Tuesday, President Obama urged Congress to raise taxes on energy firms by ditching the ability of oil companies to take advantage of certain tax provisions– a move he no doubt expected to be greeted with enthusiasm by members of his party and the liberal base, but which earned him a slap from Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.).

Via the Tulsa World:

Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Boren said Obama just needs to be quiet.

“Americans are tired of empty rhetoric on both sides and want a real plan,” Boren said. “If the president doesn’t want to stand up and be a leader, then his silence would be appreciated from people who are trying to find solutions.”

Boren described Obama as completely uninformed about the oil and gas industry.

“The industry is not made up of just major companies,” he said. “It is made up of small independent firms like those in Oklahoma that produce a vast majority of our domestic production.”

For every CEO of a major company, Boren said, there are thousands of blue-collar jobs that are affected by the Obama administration’s energy policy.

“It is a policy that is very inadequate and has left so many on the Gulf Coast unemployed.” Boren said.

Rhetorically, President Obama prides himself on bashing “greedy corporations.”  Insurance companies, the health care industry and Wall Street have all been subjected to verbal abuse from the president.  Despite his statements, the Obama Administration policy often rests on corporatism – the policy of using government to enhance market share of a few favorite firms.

The record is clear — President Obama has little reservation about plying companies with tax incentives, bailout money, secured loans – even to promote off-shore oil drilling in Brazil — or policy initiatives if it fits his worldview.  The president continues to tout the “success” of corporate bailouts for Wall Street and the car companies.

A classic example of corporatism is the recent news reports that Steven Westly a major contributor to the Obama campaign and a promoter of “alternative energy,” received half-billion dollars in federal aid for his venture capital firm.   The Center for Public Integrity discovered that since Westly raised the money for Obama, four companies in the portfolio of The Westly Group, his venture capital firm, received $510 million in loans, grants and stimulus money from the U.S. Department of Energy. And, the report added, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, on the White House’s recommendation, appointed Westly in August to the 12-member Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board.

The sad reality is that Westly will look like a piker when Google is done ravishing the Treasury.  Google has entered the political ring siding itself clearly in the left’s corner.

Google is President Obama’s favorite corporation.

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M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film production, The Last Airbender, was recently awarded over $35 million in film tax credits from Pennsylvania over two years.  The award is the largest in the history of Pennsylvania’s Film Tax Credit (FTC), breaking the record held by his previous project, The Happening, which received $12 million in tax credits.  His film Lady in the Water also received a film production grant. The only good news is that taxpayers are only forced to subsidize these movies, not to watch them.

Pennsylvania first created a film tax credit in 2004, replaced it with a film grant program in 2006, then enacted its current $75 tax credit program in 2007, in which films can receive up to 25 percent of production costs in the form of tax credit. The state’s FTC was temporarily reduced, as the 2009 state budget agreement reduced all tax credits by 33% for three years.

Forty-four states offer tax incentivizes or grants to filmmakers for in-state production, according to a recent report on film tax credits by the Tax Foundation.  Pennsylvania is among the 26 states that offer transferable (or in some states refundable) tax credits to film producers.  This means that tax credit awarded is more than the actual state taxes the recipient owes, they can sell the remaining credit to another business.

But movie incentives by-and-large have failed as economic policy.  As the Tax Foundation notes:

Movie production incentives are costly and fail to live up to their promises. … Among these failures, the two most important are their failure to encourage economic growth overall and their failure to raise tax revenue.

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Here are a few stories to bring holiday cheer for taxpayers. First, we have an Associated Press report that several hundred thousand federal bureaucrats have serious tax delinquencies. The Department of Housing and Urban Development always ranks high on the list of government entities that should be abolished, so it’s interesting to see that HUD bureaucrats are most likely to be dodging their taxes:

More than 276,000 federal employees and retirees owed back income taxes as of Sept. 30, 2008, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service. The $3.04 billion owed was up from $2.7 billion owed by federal employees and retirees in 2007. Among cabinet agencies, the Department of Housing and Urban Development had the highest delinquency rate, at just over 4 percent.

This rampant nonpayment is especially outrageous since federal bureaucrats “earn” twice as much compensation, on average, as those of us laboring in the productive sector of the economy. One might think they would go out of their way to comply since their bloated salaries come from tax collections. Speaking of outrage, the internal watchdogs at the Treasury have just published a report showing that it is almost impossible to verify eligibility for the special interest tax breaks in the so-called stimulus. As Investor’s Business Daily opines, this is an invitation to fraud:

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In a surprising development, the Washington Post discovers that Congressmen make promises of funding in exchange for votes:

“It takes a while for most start-up companies to gain the confidence of a U.S. congressman and the promise of federal funds. But last year, a small Illinois company accomplished its goal in 16 days with the help of Rep. Peter J. Visclosky, a little-known Indiana Democrat who sits on the House committee that funds the Pentagon. [...]

The congressman sponsored or supported at least $44 million in earmarks in fiscal years 2008 and 2009 for more than 15 technology firms that had hired K&L Gates as lobbyists. None of the companies operated in Visclosky’s home state, but nearly all of them donated to Visclosky’s campaign just before or soon after receiving the promise of federal money.”

This is more evidence of the twisted positive sum gain between lobbyists and lawmakers. Sure lawmakers benefit, but that’s because they have something very valuable to offer. Lobbying is a very profitable activity. According this study published in April this year, the $3 billion-a-year industry in Washington secures spectacular returns on investment such as “a single tax break in 2004 earned companies $220 for every dollar they spent on the issue — a 22,000 percent rate of return on their investment.”