Big Oil companies actually receive tax subsidies

Including, apparently, his own source material. My opponent has failed to read the second definition he cut & paste into his own argument- "Any grant or contribution of money" -clearly a definition so inclusive that tax breaks are implied. Sir, a grant or contribution of money is not a tax break. There cannot be a simpler way of putting it. A grant or contribution of $100 to you means you have $100 more than you had. A tax break of any amount allowed to you is not in any way, shape or form a transfer of money to you. You are not one penny richer because of a tax break. You are simply not a penny poorer. How is it that you cannot understand the difference between having $100 handed to you and not having $100 taken from you? I fail to understand why this is a difficult concept but evidently, for a lot of people, it is. I suppose for all the people that cannot understand the difference, you will get their vote if anyone reads this debate. When my opponent states that "everybody thinks" that the definition of the word subsidy includes tax breaks, he concedes the central point of our debate. It is one thing to think that a tax break is a subsidy and if you or anyone wants to define it that way, fine. I cannot stop you. However, the crux of the matter is is that numerous people literally think that when an oil company gets a tax break/subsidy, money is transferred from the pockets of taxpayers to the fat bank accounts of the oil companies. This is 100% false. I have stated repeatedly to no avail that this debate is not about the definition of subsidy. It is abundantly clear that there are numerous definitions of the word itself. I have tried 11 different ways from Thursday to say that this debate, using the classical and most sensical definition of a subsidy which is a grant, is about whether or not oil companies receive a transfer of wealth from taxpayer to them. For some reason, I cannot get you to take a stand on that at all or to even address that. You are so focused on the headline of the debate, you are missing the point. When Obama uses the term "taxpayer subsidies," let me demonstrate the deception in his words. I have already shown proof from several website links that many people think they are literally getting money from us taxpayers. That is not in dispute. The question is why does Obama (and no, he is not alone) call a tax break a "taxpayer subsidy?" Since a subsidy, as you and some dictionaries define it is a type of tax break, let's do some word substitution. Instead of Obama calling them "taxpayer subsidies", why does he not call them "taxpayer tax breaks" since a tax break is a kind of subsidy? No, he won't call it that because that does not makes sense and more importantly, there is no such thing! Taxpayers do not give tax breaks to oil companies but each time he says "taxpayer subsides," he knows that he is putting an image in your mind that money is going from taxpayers to oil companies and "we want to end those subsidies. We want to end the people giving a helping hand to oil companies and making the rich richer." That is his message and to say it has worked would be an understatement. If your definition of a subsidy is truly nothing more than a tax break in some cases, why does he call them "taxpayer" subsidies"? Why not call them what you say they actually are - "government subsidies" or "government tax breaks." No money is being transferred from taxpayers but he calls it that to instill the idea in the public's mind a lie that money is leaving their pockets for the oil company's pockets. They are simply being allowed to keep some of what they earned. It is so exhausting for people who claim to love freedom to think that it is wrong for that to be allowed.