During Record Profits, Oil Companies Demanding and Receiving Tax Breaks

From the Wall Street Journal:

Despite public frustration over high pump prices and flush industry profits, major refining companies are seeking and winning large local tax breaks for their refinery-expansion plans with little political opposition.

The reasons: The Bush administration is encouraging refiners to produce more gasoline to help keep prices down, while local communities fear the companies will take jobs elsewhere if they aren't offered inducements to stay.

The various incentives, combined with a federal tax-break package last year, can offer refiners savings that reach hundreds of millions of
dollars, though estimating a total is difficult given the range of federal
and local levying agencies involved.

This scenario is unreal. The fight over jobs among communities has hit the point where industries making record profits at huge cost to the rest of the country make off with huge tax breaks, financed in part by the rest of the country already being hit.