The Great Oil Tax

In Washington politics, the USA budget deficit is the current topic Du Jour - as it should be. Our current deficit is a staggering 14 trillion dollars and many economist are predicting a severe economic inflationary crisis in five to six years unless our country's checkbook is better balanced.

It is my hope that the budget conversation seriously address, arguably, one of the hugest drags to our deficit, and that is the Great Oil Tax. The following is an itemized list of USA spending that is indirectly or directly tied to our oil dependency:

Defense Budget - 663.8 billion dollars (almost more than the combined total of the rest of the world). In post Cold War USA, much of our defense budget is spent protecting and supporting our energy strategy.

Afghan and Iraqi wars - One conservative estimate is over Three Trillion dollars

Big Oil Company tax breaks - 40 billion dollars

Middle-East Foreign Aid - We give just to Israel and Egypt over five billion dollars annually

Oil Spill Clean-up - 10 billion dollars just for BP's Mexican Gulf spill.

And not to mention ecological and environmental costs that have yet to be tallied.

I have no illusions regarding our Oil Tax being reduced, big Oil spends big money to lobby for status quo in congress. But maybe, just maybe if we can get enough people fired up via twitter, blogs, facebook, email etc. (just think Egypt) we can effectively people lobby our government.

I'm just saying.