Teapot Dome, Anyone?

Can there really be any more question, even on the part of free market fundamentalists, that this administration is utterly, utterly corrupt?

The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years. New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government. Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.

The article claims that "there may be little Congress can do to reverse its earlier giveaways" and that Bush et al weakly opposed the "royalty relief." What a pile of goose dung. Surely, if Republicans in the White House and the Capitol had any will, they could find a way to forestall this ridiculous corporate welfare.

But of course, they are probably seeing things work out exactly as planned. Along with Medicare Part D, Iraq reconstruction, bankruptcy reform, Katrina recovery, Social Security privatization, and Abramovian casino machinations, this zillion-dollar handout to companies which just reported record profits is surely more evidence that free-market principles end where lobbyists' begging hands begin.