Big Oil and the U.S. government

The U.S. Senate blocked this week a proposal to stop handouts to the 5 big oil companies worth 5 billion.
All of the 47 Republicans and 3 Democrat Senators voted to keep the subsidies under the pretense that it would hurt customers at the pump. Customers are already hurting. The Energy Committee of the U.S. Senate had hearings with the Chairmen of the big oil companies. One of the chairmen said that the American public does not want the oil companies to sacrifice, they only want the wellbeing of businesses.
A poll taken by NBC/Wall Street Journal taken in February of 2011 showed that 74% of Americans believe that subsidies should be eliminated.
But the members that voted not to eliminate those subsidies have received 25 million in campaign contributions from these companies while the people who voted in favor of eliminating them only received 5 million from the oil industry.
I have said in the past that the oil industry together with other big contributors is one of the cancers of this country. They corrupt the system, poison the air we breathe and pollute the water we drink with leaks into soil.
The hoax of the republican party about cutting the federal deficit is nothing but a cover up of what it really is, the dismantling of ALL the programs that help the middle class and the poor, destroying Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.