Phone survey re: proposed oil tax in L.A. Telling and depressing

[K8-EEE]

I took part in one of those paid "surveys" just as a whim -- it was about a proposed tax on the next CA ballot, for extracting oil from Los Angeles county. The poor guy doing it was obviously just some schlub trying to make an extra couple of bucks but the entire experience was depressing.

They start by asking if you would support a $1.14 (or about that) tax per barrel of oil extracted from Los Angeles county to fund local services, police fire etc. Well hellya.

Then he starts in with "If I told you this......would you still be of the same opinion?" And he starts in with "what if I said it was opposed by a group called 'taxpayers for fair blah blah' or 'Small business association against blah blah."

It was so depressing because that is what they always do. The Repukes want to spare the richest corporations ANY taxes at all (forget that the war in Iraq was for oil profits and we are all paying THAT bill!) and they will ALWAYS claim it "hurts small business." They never seem to notice that WalMart hasn't been too good for small business!

One of the questions that really made me laugh was "what if you knew that Exxon and BP would not be affected as much as mom & pop operations?" I'm like...theres MOM & POP GAS COMPANIES?? They guy just re-read the question and probably looked at his watch.

Anyway what kills me is they ALWAYS use these same FAIL arguments to get the people to go against their best interests!

[Yupster]

1. Yes there are mom and pop oil companies

West Texas is full of them -- in fact Bush owned one and ran his into the ground which is not unusual since it's a very high risk proposition.

They're called independants and it's a wild lifestyle . You spend your time in the library examining lease charts and try to find a place that likely has oil where the lease is open or expiring. Then you go talk to the rancher, you get a bunch of people to put up enough money to drill a well and then hope you find oil, or you look for wells that are depleting but you think a frac job can bring them back to life. You buy the well, refrac it, and then sell it at the higher production level.

[K8-EEE]

2. Somehow I can believe it more in West TX than in Los Angeles!

Interesting!