Limited Liability Bailout

Via Crooks and Liars:

Senate Republicans have stalled legislation that would require oil companies to pay fully for their accidents. Listen to Senator Inhofe (R-Oil Companies) push for Big Oil's ability to make obscene profits over safety:

You gotta love how these "Oh noes! Obama wants us to be socialists!" Republicans have no problem with a multi-national oil company privatizing their profits and socializing their costs. Why aren't the protesters who scream about bailouts not screaming about this?

Obama made a statement expressing his frustration:

"I am disappointed that an effort to ensure that oil companies pay fully for disasters they cause has stalled in the United States Senate on a partisan basis. This maneuver threatens to leave taxpayers, rather than the oil companies, on the hook for future disasters like the BP oil spill. I urge the Senate Republicans to stop playing special interest politics and join in a bipartisan effort to protect taxpayers and demand accountability from the oil companies.”

Transocean Ltd . , the owner of the rig leased by BP which is currently leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico, has received $270 million in profit from insurance payouts after the disaster.

The amount, revealed during a conference call to analysts, was made because its insurance policy for Deepwater Horizon rig was greater than the value of the rig itself, the Sunday Times reports. The Times says Transocean has already received cash payment of $401 million and the rest is due in the coming weeks.

Unbelievable. Of course, that money has been turned around as part of a nice, fat $1B dividend to stockholders.

Rand Paul who just won the primary in Kentucky for the Republican Senate nomination recently spoke about the the bank bailout in an interview with Neil Cavuto.

We, as Republicans, don’t believe in bailing out failed businesses, much less about having the government [owning them]....

Rand Paul while proposing no bailout, also proposes to "cut regulations on bankers, health insurance companies and oil drillers."

If Paul doesn't support regulation but at the same time he also doesn't support bailouts, then what is his position on lifting the liability cap on oil companies.