Republicans intended to increase taxes on oil companies to pay for the $100 rebate check to be sent to all taxpayers as assistance for the current gas price hullabaloo.  Guess what?  The oil companies didn’t want to pay for that, so now the GOP has killed the idea.  Yes, you understand that correctly: rather than even attempt to help the American public with this paltry, prostitute-like payoff, Republicans caved to pressure from big oil.  You see, those companies making record profits refused entirely to help with this situation, and their lobbying efforts paid off.  They don’t want to pay extra taxes to help the American public, and Republicans, being in the pocket of big oil, don’t want to rock the boat that ferries huge amounts of money into their campaigns and bank accounts.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, under pressure from business leaders, retreated Monday from a plan that would have used a tax increase on oil companies and other businesses to pay for a $100 gasoline rebate for millions of motorists.

Frist had proposed an accounting change that would have required oil companies to pay more taxes on their inventory of crude as a way to pay the one-time rebate that GOP leaders rolled out last week as they scrambled to find ways to ease public anger over soaring gasoline prices.

In a statement, Frist said he will still push the rebate, but abandoned the accounting change and said the Senate Finance Committee planned a hearing on the issue in the near future.

Frist gave no indication how the rebate, estimated to cost about $10 billion, will be paid for, although he said he still planned to “find a way to bring our proposals to the Senate floor for a vote.”

So, you see, the idea is to screw the insurmountable deficit our country already has in hope of pandering to big oil.  This means any $100 rebate check you receive from Repugnicans will in fact be moot since you must pay that back along with the rest of the hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars-and-growing debt now hanging over the collective heads of American citizens.

Come on, poppets.  Wake up and smell the crude!  We’re being bent over by greedy conservatives who demonstrate time and again they have little interest in our well-being.  Instead, they will continue pandering to big business, especially big oil, despite whatever harm it might bring to us, the national economy, the environment, and everything else.

You see, not using some of those windfall profits by oil companies to pay for the rebate, a bad idea in and of itself, means we the taxpayers will pay for it, but this time with interest added on.  With Republicans pushing to send the whorish check to Americans regardless of whether or not they have a car, and with them caving to big oil’s refusal to pay for it out of those enormous profits they keep reporting, we’re getting shafted yet again with toting the bill for costs we should never be asked to pay.

I don’t know how much more upset I can get about this before I explode.  If you’ve not called your representatives in Congress, you’re a fool and a glutton for punishment.  Send an e-mail, make a call, or do whatever else it takes to let them know this $100 rebate idea is the worst pandering to big business you have ever seen, the worst insult to the hard work you do every single day, and an offense to all of us who live in the real world and have to pay our own bills.

In fact, while you’re at it, demand a pay cut for all congressional representatives to help pay off the national debt and recover some of our costs due to the ever increasing price of oil — and, therefore, gas.  If they want to suckle at the teat of oil companies, let them do so at their own expense, not ours.