revenues

With less than a year left in office, President Barack Obama is upping the pressure on America’s fossil fuel industries with a slew of new regulations and tax proposals.

The news is filled with the everyday zigzags of those competing against each other for the Democrat and Republican Party nominations to run for the presidency of the United States. But one of the most important issues receiving little or no attention in this circus of political power lusting is the long-term danger from the huge and rising Federal government debt.

As the topic of severance taxes heats up in Pennsylvania and Ohio, it’s worth investigating exactly what severances taxes are and why they are implemented.

President Obama tells us in the Overview to his Fiscal Year 2014 Budget just released last week that his budget proposes, “more than $2 in spending cuts for every $1…