The one assumption that you're making though is that all that money is going towards operations and not towards stock buy backs and other things that impact short term profitability. With private equity leeching into the private sector, there no longer is an incentive to remain profitable for the duration. Why spend 10 billion on operations when you can spend 3 billion on stock buy backs and somebody will take you private and make you rich.

I agree that you can't over tax businesses because they might just leave or become unsustainable ( china being a good example of government going to far ) but everyday consumers are struggling as well and they're the backbone of the entire economy. They need a break more than some natural gas company that may trickle down some benefits to the common folk.

The incentive is that people in government will get voted out if their policies and strategies perform poorly. I agree that a lot of politicians are looking out mainly for their own skin but there's plenty of politics and inefficiency in companies as well, the companies you described being major beneficiaries of the problem that you describe

To your second point, you recoup a lot of your witheld money after filing a tax return so it's not like it's really wasted. Quarterly estimates for everyone would just make taxes too confusing so I agree there.

The only issue with that is that tax credits do serve a purpose - to encourage behaviors that enhance the lives of everyday people and reward people for being active members of society. I agree that certain tax credits like the ones you mentioned have no place in society as they stifle competition. However, I'm all for things like the EITC and Child care tax credit which enhance the lives of people who work but need a little extra boost and help working class families with kids.

Your plan sounds interesting but how are you going to force tax payers to write a check to the gov? And there's plenty of transparency within the government, hence why things seem to go "slow." Government is only inefficient because people want it to be.

All your analogies make 1 failed assumption - that it's a 1 to 1 exchange that doesn't involve millions of other parties that are impacted in a variety of ways as a result of the existence of the exchange. People can't claim these natural gas credits, only natural gas companies can. How is it a free market if certain behaviors are being incentivized by a 3rd party entity? Your perspective is that everything reconciles and a transaction is always a zero sum game - maybe 150 years ago, you would be correct but the world is much more complicated and intertwined nowadays.

The original argument wasn't about property rights. They're arguing about the fact that tax credits result in a deficit in tax revenue. Tax credits are often used to incentivize certain behaviors that may impose a burden or help people thrive ( EV tax credit, Solar credit, Child care credit, EITC, etc. The motive for natural gas is clearly present in the millions and billions of profits that they take in year after year.

Why do we need to incentivize natural gas production? It's not like they're already making hand over fist. And that's assuming they use the majority of tax credits to improve their operations which is unlikely.

And ask yourself this - who covers the cost of those subsidies? Maybe the tax payers of Pennsylvania? That money could be used for other projects (Pa Roads?????) instead of subsidizing an already profitable industry.