According to the Christian Science Monitor, oil and gas companies get $41Billion in tax subsidies each year.
From Business Week: “It’s not like these are companies that can’t stand on their own,” Obama said in prepared remarks delivered in the White House Rose Garden. Last year, the three biggest U.S. oil companies took home more than $80 billion in profit, with Exxon Mobil Corp. collecting almost $4.7 million each hour, he said.
In a poll conducted for NBC and the Wall Street Journal, three-quarters of respondents favored "eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries." Specifically, 47 percent said they found such cuts "totally acceptable" and 27 percent said they found it "mostly acceptable."