as an accountant, its honestly pretty amazing how many subsidies and tax breaks oil companies get. they RARELY pay taxes in comparison to other industries to be honest... and in some cases, they never pay taxes where most companies would be hammered. if most people saw the accounting and tax treatments oil companies get (because of the control oil co's have on all of the wallets of the politcians they 'lobbied' to get the special tax treatments) they would probably be even more ill than just hearing what profits they have made.
and that federal tax on gas rounds out to about $.16 - $.17 per gal. state tax increases it more... but if you didn't have those taxes, and you think our highways are bad now, nevermind potholes, we would have miniture canyons on all our federal highways.
regulation is not poison for business. our banking system, although flawed and is taking some pretty good hits right now in the news and on the market, is by far the most sound banking system in the world, and is also the most heavily regulated business in the US. if it wasn't so heavily regulated, it wouldn't have survived what it is going through right now... it would have been dead in the water easily a year and a half ago when most banks had an inverted yield curve...