Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday introduced a bill that would rescind billions of dollars worth of tax incentives extended to U.S. energy companies and put the money into a fund earmarked for renewable energy.

Sponsors of the Creating Long-term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act, or CLEAN, said it will save U.S. taxpayers about $13 billion over an unspecified number of years, but industry groups said it could hinder U.S. oil companies’ ability to find and develop new energy sources.

Going after “Big Oil” is a top priority of the House of Representatives’ Democratic leadership, which says oil companies have earned record profits at the expense of U.S. motorists paying high gasoline prices.

Although the politicians on both sides of the aisle would like us to think that it’s in their Constitutional authority to engage in subsidies, energy research and the like, we challenge everyone to find one word in the Constitution that authorizes such activity.

The title here is interesting, and may even mislead. While it’s quite good for politicians to “go after” subsidies (and hopefully end them) – it doesn’t do any good at all if they just take that subsidy and give it to someone else.

That’s just what’s happening here. The politicians, acting like a mafia cartel once again, are taking money from one group, and giving it to another. All the while, they continue extracting your tax money for these and other unconstitutional ventures.

They claim this program will “save $13 billion” But remember, virtually every time the government starts a new program, it ends up costing much much more than they advertised in the beginning.

If they told us the truth about these things, the war in Iraq would be paid for by Iraqi oil, the income tax never would’ve gone above 6%, Social Security tax would only be 2%, and on and on, and on.

What really needs to happen is for “we the people” to “go after” big government.