The New York Times reported yesterday, “Linking two of the politically volatile issues of the moment, Senate Democrats say they will move forward this week with a plan that would eliminate tax breaks for big oil companies and divert the savings to offset the deficit. . . . ‘Big Oil certainly doesn’t need the collective money of taxpayers in this country,’ said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the authors of the legislation that Democrats intend to showcase. ‘This is as good a time as any in terms of pain at the pump and in revenues needed for deficit reduction.’”

 Yet Democrats have failed to explain how raising taxes on energy producers will do anything for Americans feeling the financial pinch of higher gas prices. In a statement to the NYT, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Instead of returning again and again to tax hikes that increase consumers’ costs, the administration and its Democrat allies in Congress should open their eyes to the vast energy resources we have right here at home and to the hundreds of thousands of jobs that opening them up could create.”

In fact, according to a March report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a similar proposal to the Senate Democrats’ tax hike proposed in President Obama’s original budget would be more likely to increase gas prices. CRS wrote, “[T]he proposals also would make oil and natural gas more expensive for U.S. consumers and likely increase foreign dependence.”

Democrat senators from energy producing states offer similar warnings: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said in March, “The administration has put forward draconian taxes on the oil and gas industry… It seems very contrary to our stated goal of being more energy sufficient in the United States. Taxing this domestic industry will instead cut jobs and increase our dependency on foreign oil.” And Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) said in February that tax increases on energy companies “would cost thousands of jobs in Alaska and across the country. Energy companies are among the businesses investing and creating jobs at a time when our country needs both.”

Not only that, when an amendment was offered earlier this year for just such a tax hike, it was rejected by a bipartisan majority of senators, including seven Democrats. Senate Democrats’ latest proposal for tax hikes is similarly counterproductive and unresponsive to the real problem of high gas prices. Rather, it would increase those prices for consumers and cost jobs in many states. That’s not a solution that helps American families and businesses.

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