Make Industries' Tax Breaks Permanent, President Urges

[Rose Siding]

MAPLEWOOD, Minn., Feb. 2 — President Bush went Thursday to a center of American innovation, the 3M Company, which invented Scotch Tape and Post-it notes, to call for permanent tax breaks for industries that invest in research and development and to improve Republican chances in a pivotal state in a midterm election year.

Mr. Bush also renewed his promise from the State of the Union address to reduce oil imports from the Mideast, even as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries objected and after Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said Mr. Bush's words should not be taken literally.

In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Bodman said the goal of replacing 75 percent of Middle East oil imports to the United States with ethanol and other energy sources by 2025, a headline from the State of the Union address, was "purely an example" of what might be done.

On Thursday, Mr. Bush went even further in calling for independence from Middle East oil in a speech on scientific innovation and research.

"I'm confident that we'll be able to say to the American people when this research is complete that the United States is on our way to no dependence on oil from the Middle East," Mr. Bush said to applause from several hundred employees and Republican supporters at 3M headquarters here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/national/03bush.html?ex=1296622800&en=fe303c9dc99349e5&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Corporate tax cuts = energy independence (but not really! it's just an example!)

[Nickster]

1. OMG, doesn't it hurt people in the head to read stuff like this?

One day he means it. Next day he doesn't really mean it. Then he's out really,really meaning it. Then he's cutting funding and researchers because he really really means it. Double Plus Good?? Arggghhhh

[saigon68]

2. The Profits will " TRICKLE DOWN"

Like warm piss from a full bladder on the leg of an inebriate

[SillyGoose]

3. He changed his tune on oil because the Saudis were upset about it.

Diplomatically, Mr. Bush's ambitious call for the replacement of 75 percent of the United States' Mideast oil imports with ethanol and other energy sources by 2025 upset Saudi Arabia, the main American oil supplier in the Persian Gulf. In an interview on Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said he would have to ask Mr. Bush's office "what he exactly meant by that."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/02/politics/02energy.htm...

Never underestimate the power of Saudi Arabian ire.

[FloridaPat]

4. They only way * is going to reduce depence on foreign oil is to

make the ME countries states. However, if we "buy" or "capture" the oil wells, would that make them America oil wells?