I thought 'hate' was not a family value - the left sure hate oil companies

Major oil companies in the US face a punitive tax regime that other industries don't face.  As a result their effective tax rates and total tax payments are the highest in the land.  And of course Obama is seeking to hurt them even more.  Why?  Essentially because they can afford it and they are politically unpopular - you know, like Jews in Germany or Japanese Americans in WWII.  What we can't afford is shifting any more resource away from the productive private sector and into the wealth destroying public sector.  Everything it touches it wrecks.

ExxonMobil in 2011 made $27.3 billion in cash payments for income taxes. Chevron paid $17 billion and ConocoPhillips $10.6 billion. And not only were these the highest amounts in absolute terms, when compared with the rest of the 25 most profitable U.S. companies (see our slideshow for the full rundown of who paid what), the trio also had the highest effective tax rates. Exxon’s tax rate was 42.9%, Chevron’s was 48.3% and Conoco’s was 41.5%. That’s even higher than the 35% U.S. federal statutory rate, which is already the highest tax rate among developed nations.