Big oil making obscene profits

This year, U.S. taxpayers will be giving $700 billion to ExxonMobil, Shell and Marathon Petroleum and that's on top of what you're paying at the pump.

Recently, the International Monetary Fund estimated that dirty coal and oil corporations will receive a staggering $5.3 trillion from governments worldwide. To put this in perspective, the sum of this subsidy is more than the health care budget for all the countries in the world. That money could eradicate poverty, invest in clean energy, boost health and education systems and create more jobs in the clean energy industry.

The Guardian newspaper has exposed a trail of dirty money that connects our tax money with politicians. Shell made a profit of $26.8 billion in 2012 and received $1.6 billion of our taxes. ExxonMobil received $119 million from taxpayers and that's on top of a staggering $41 billion in profits. In 2011, Marathon Petroleum had profits of only $2.4 billion, so a jobs subsidy scheme in Ohio netted them $78 million from taxpayers. Every single well, pipeline, refinery, coal and gas plant in the country is heavily subsidized by taxpayers.

Besides all the taxes big oil receives from us, our government is still forced to spend even more treating victims of air pollution and income lost because of ill health and premature deaths caused by dirty energy. Subsidies also fund exploration for more oil - a great example of humanity's madness, greed, and disconnection with nature.

It is unconscionable that big oil is making staggering profits while poisoning our land, air and water supplies. Equally appalling is that we taxpayers are giving these corporations $700 billion to make us sick. Herein lies the biggest tax and environmental heist of the half-century.

Joni Lindgren

Elgin