Boehner: Scrap oil subsidies only in broader corporate tax cut

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) sought to clarify his stance on ending subsidies for oil companies, saying the change should be considered only as part of a broader effort to reduce the corporate tax rate.
 
The Speaker last month signaled he was open to eliminating certain oil tax breaks, but his office walked that statement back, and on Thursday he criticized a bill offered by Senate Democrats to scrap the subsidies and use the revenue for deficit reduction.
 
“We all know that going after oil companies is easy politics, but we also know that if this bill were to pass, it wouldn’t lower gas prices one penny,” Boehner said at his weekly news conference. “And I believe that as we get in to looking at the fundamental reform of the corporate tax code, this and every other issues ought to be considered.”
 
Democrats seized on his comments to ABC News in April, when he said large oil companies “ought to be paying their fair share” and that their tax breaks were “certainly something we ought to be looking at.”
 
On Thursday, he said that scrapping those and other breaks could be considered as a way of paying for lowering the corporate rate, which Republicans have long pushed for.

“I think that looking at tax expenditures in the confines of an effort to reduce the corporate tax code are certainly appropriate,” he said. “I think that’s the appropriate place to look at this.”
 
Boehner’s comments came as oil executives were testifying in the Senate against eliminating the subsidies, which they characterize as a tax increase. ExxonMobile CEO Rex Tillerson attacked the Senate Democrat effort as “misinformed and discriminatory.”
 
Boehner also added a warning to those pushing for higher taxes on corporations such as oil companies.
 
“When you start talking about corporate tax rates, understand this: companies don’t pay taxes,” he said. “Their customers pay taxes for them, because the people who buy their goods and services are the ones who eventually see those increased taxes in the price of the goods and services they get.”