OXY In The Spotlight -- November 4, 2019

WTI goes over $57/bbl this morning. 

Bloomberg: Vicki Hollub in the spotlight. Earnings call tomorrow, Tuesday, November 5, 2019.

Earnings should be released after market close today, Monday, November 4, 2019.

EPS, consensus: 38 cents/share.

At Investor's Business Daily here.

********************************

Old News: Chicago

A reader sent me a link about bond ratings for the city of Chicago after recent public school teachers' strike / new contract.

I completely missed this -- back on July 1, 2019: the Illinois gasoline tax doubled.

The state’s tax on gasoline today will spike to 38 cents per gallon – doubling from the 19-cents-per-gallon state tax Illinois drivers have paid to fuel up since 1990. Just in the first year, the gas tax will take $1.2 billion more from Illinois drivers, or an average of $100 more per driver.

Illinois’ doubled state gas tax comes as part of a $45 billion capital plan Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law June 28, on top of 20 more tax and fee hikes to pay for required infrastructure spending as well as for the state’s record $40.6 billion fiscal year 2020 budget, which also starts today. Despite all the new taxes, this will mark the 19th year Illinois will end up spending more than it collected in revenue – as much as $1.3 billion more.

The gas tax hike will propel Illinois’ state and local tax burden on gasoline to third-highest in the nation, according to 2018 data from the Tax Foundation. Prior to the tax hike, Illinoisans paid the nation’s 10th-highest overall gas tax burden.

Beyond the state-level increase, the new law also allows Chicago to increase its local gas tax by 3 cents; Lake County and Will County to impose a gas tax of up to 8 cents per gallon; and DuPage, Kane and McHenry counties to double their 4-cent-per-gallon gas taxes to 8 cents. These additional hikes may end up making Illinois’ average gas tax burden the highest or second-highest in the nation.

The new law also ties the state’s gas tax to inflation, meaning it will automatically rise in future years without lawmakers facing any constituent backlash.

That was the point I was making to the reader. The increases in taxes and fees are much like the increases in one's television cable bill; one's monthly cell phone bill; etc. Small enough to irritate those paying attention, but not great enough to get them to move out of the city or out of the state (or even to vote out incumbents).

Gasoline tax? An average of $100 more per driver (I assume that's for the year). $100 / 365 days = 27 cents/day. Seriously, is that enough to get one to move out of state? Especially knowing that many states are raising their gasoline taxes.

And note: the new Illinois gas tax is still not the highest in the nation. And we haven't even gotten to fees on gasoline to pay for global warming issues. Those are fees that can yet be levied.