Either Sen. Scott Brown isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, he's phenomenally dishonest, or maybe he's just a little bit delusional. After the whole royalty fiasco, it's looking like it's the delusional thing. This conversation he had with a spectator at an Independence Day parade in Plymouth, MA really reinforces that theory.



BROWN: Oil companies don’t get subsidies. . . . I’m positive. They’re able to take deduction like every other business. If we’re going to reform the tax code, we should do that.

The American Chemical Society cites a report by Double Bottom Line Venture Capital that explains how the oil industry has reaped benefits from subsidies. From 1918 to 2009, the average annual subsidy was $4.86 billion. By comparison, the nuclear energy industry gets around $3.5 billion per year. [...] The American Coalition for Ethanol estimates that when combined with state and local government aid to large oil companies, subsidies amount to anywhere from $133.8 billion to $280.8 billion annually from all sources of taxpayer aid that goes to the oil and gas industry.

Right, oil companies are just like every other business Brown has had multiple opportunities to vote to end the loopholes the oil and gas industry has so remarkably benefitted from over the past century, and every time he's voted in lockstep with Republicans to keep those loopholes in place. Maybe it's because he didn't understand that he wasn't voting on keepingbusiness tax loopholes in place. Which he says should be reformed.

Brown should stick to talking about sports.