Republicans and Democrats are vying to see who can come up with the stupidest pander to motorists — all part of a short-sighted election-year reaction to $3-a-gallon gas.
President Bush eases environmental standards for refineries, trading long-term environmental damage for short-term price relief. Republicans say "drill in ANWR!" and suggest sending every taxpayer a $100 rebate, which at least gets points for honesty as a direct money-for-votes proposal. Democrats talk of temporarily suspending the federal gasoline tax.
Then there's the ever-popular "let's investigate the oil companies for price gouging", along with the related "let's make the oil companies pay higher/lower taxes."
None of these "solutions" are more than drops in the bucket, and the oil companies aren't the problem: the problem is ever-rising demand for oil, nervousness in the futures markets and refining bottlenecks.
Frankly, the only rational move thus far was made by Bush, who decided to stop putting oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But he did it for the wrong reason: to try to lower prices at the pump. The real reason to stop putting oil into the reserve is that it's needlessly expensive to buy and store oil you don't need at peak price. Let it drop a bit before resuming purchases.
Here's an idea, guys: stop messing with a good thing. Get up there and lead, and have the courage to explain the real problem with $3 gasoline: it's not expensive enough.
Current "high" gas prices have already had all sorts of salutory effects: renewed interest and investment in alternative fuels, energy-efficient transportation and mass transit. People are carpooling or biking or walking. They're trading in gas guzzlers for Priuses. And there's growing acknowledgement that our oil addiction is a Really Bad Thing, both economically and politically. Imagine how much those effects would intensify if gas got even more expensive.
What we actually need is a hefty increase in the gas tax to drive home the real problem: an economy built on artificially cheap imported oil. Until the pump price of gasoline starts to accurately reflect the true cost of an oil-dependent culture, people will continue to make irrational decisions about energy use. And we will continue to be beholden to despotic oil-rich dictators whose people blame us for their woes.
What is the true cost of a gallon of gasoline? It can be hard to calculate. But for starters we can throw in the $400 billion we've spent in Iraq, and arguably the $1 trillion or so we'll eventually spend in the overall fight against terror. I'm not saying we invaded Iraq for the oil. But we wouldn't give a rat's ass about the Mideast — or have spent so much time and money backing regional dictators whose oppression and economic mismanagement is part of the longstanding root of the problem — if it weren't for oil and our desire to maintain a steady and cheap supply of it.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Brilliant observations, Sean. If only someone in the big wide political world were paying attention instead of going for the easy pandering pseudosolutions.
Dave
2 - stan
no worries, 30 years of oil crises - wouldn't expect a resolution.
3 - Sean Aqui
And my rates are so reasonable, too!
4 - Sean Aqui
BTW, I'm beginning to get slightly depressed by the steady drumbeat of "great idea; it'll never happen" reaction to my posts....
5 - Casey Lunkley
That's all well and good, but you have to relaize that unfortunately, people as a whole are just too stupid to figure out that extremely expensive gas is a reason for them to dish out money on a new car, whether it's fuel efficient or not. They might complain for a very long time about how much they're spending on oil, but will they lift a finger to help the enviornment or their own wallets?
No way. Not unless we have a very high-priced advertising campaign with the "Desperate Housewives" cast driving Priuses.
Sorry to depress you. But it'll never happen.
6 - RedTard
What makes people think that government taxation is always the answer?
Market forces will replace oil when it is necessary and economically feasible. It's not worth ceding more authority to an already corrupt and bloated government. They'll take those tax $$$'s and blow them with the rest of the Trillion or so they spend every year.
The attitude that everyone is too 'stupid' expressed by Casey above is just the sort shit that turns people off to your ideas. Maybe the average citizen doesn't jump when the media throws up the red flag.
Now it's Bird Flu and oil prices and global warming. Before that it was SARS and mad cow. Before that ebola and Y2K and even the 70's oil freakout and global cooling. The media whips you into a frenzy and you jump like a puppet on a string. Oil finally passed the price of bottled water, big deal, the world isn't coming to an end.
You can hide in the basement with your mask and duct tape and recycle your own shit to make organic compost if you want to. Me, I'll drive what I want and do as I please and all you leftist government control freaks can fuck off!
7 - nugget
my mother-in-law is burying garbage bags in her back yard because self-proclaimed time traveler John Titor (who drives a gravity distortion unit) predicted WWIII in 2015.
8 - Jet in Columbus
Nugget #7... Good God! Nugget I hope they're biodegradable, or she'll have to file an environmental impact statement!
9 - Jet in Columbus
Comment #7 of my article "Frist and Big Oil Try to Buy Alaska for Two Tanks of Gas!" gives a current breakdown of how much crude we import from the top 15 sources...
Jet
10 - Dave Nalle
Um, what does she think burying trash bags in the back yard is going to do for her?
Dave
11 - Jet in Columbus
Daaaaaaaave! Now think, after the apocolypse, who's going to manufacture trash bags? She can sell them for $5 a piece and make a fortune!
12 - Arch Conservative
Three days to go and still no one has written a post on the "Great American Wetback Walkout" scheduled for Monday.
13 - Nancy
Archie, you're one of the commentators here at BC, go ahead & write one. I look forward to it, because it needs to be said, 'enough is enough' with these vermin.
14 - Arch Conservative
I'd like to write one but I don't have the time to write a lengthy reasoned post citing the facts that show what these ILLEGALS are doing to this nation.
I am sure someone will soon be labelling me a racist for dubbing Monday's festivities as the "Great American Wetback Walkout" but that's exactly what it is and I'll stop using the term wetback when wetbacks stop calling me a gringo. [Manners maketh man, Archie. Comments Editor]
15 - Casey Lunkley
Why are you "two" bringing up illegal immigrants? Nothing in this blog says anything about illegal immigrants.
" Fuck them and fuck anyone who disagrees with me."
Glad to know you have an open mind.
16 - Dave Nalle
Arch, we haven't even heard of this walkout on Monday. But of course over the past week the INS has rounded up just about every illegal in the Austin area and now we can't get service at fast food restaurants and the entire system is grinding to a halt.
As for the walkout, I predict gross failure. Illegals don't want to walk out, they want to work.
Dave
17 - Michael J. West
Illegals don't want to walk out, they want to work.
If only we could foster that mindset among more of the legals.
18 - Arch Conservative
They wanna work? Do they also want to pay taxes, speak english, and pay for thier healthcare Dave?
Casey you said "Glad to know you have an open mind."
I say to you glad to see you believe American laws should be obeyed.
Ill talk about ILLEGAL ALIENS all day long on every post wether it's mentioned or not casey because it is an important issue that needs to have much more attention paid to it than we currently do.
As for Michael West's insinuation that there are too many legals who are lazy......
While that may be true it does not justify the mass invasion of ILLEGALS.
I am tired of being civil to jackasses who believe that being politically correct is more important than being honest and BC is full of these.
If you're against ILLEGAL ALIENS you're a racist right?
Hell no and anyone who says I am can kiss my ass because you're a bunch of race baiting pinheads.
If you're not with myself and those on my side of the issue you're with the 20 million wetbacks who are here illegally and demanding the rights that legal citizens have.
I hope the government finally grows a pair and listens to the vast majority of legal citizens who are fed up. I hope they spray the fuckign "Wetback Walkout marches with tear gas. I hope INS rounds thousands more of them up on Monday and deports them. I hope someone decides to run over 20-30 wetbacks with his car because he is a legal citizen trying to get to work on Monday morning to support his family but soem wetbacks are marching in front of him and they will not let him pass.
I will make a comment about this issue in every topic that I respond to on BC regardless of the subject matter from now on. I will increase the vitriol tenfold with every post I make. I will tell anyone who disagress with me exactly where to stick it.
It's time for the party to end.
[Sorry, Archie, that's just not gonna happen. You'll be polite or be edited, your choice. Have A Nice Day... Comments Editor]
19 - Sean Aqui
Gee, Arch, I'm sure you'll win a lot of people over to your way of thinking with that strategy....
20 - Arch Conservative
Well anyone who doesn't come to the same conclusions that I have about this issue before ever seeing one of my posts is a fucking idiot anyway and beyond reaching with the truth.
21 - Jet in Columbus
Arch, that has to be the biggest {expletive deleted} fowl-mouthed load of {expletive deleted} I've ever read! How on earth can you be convinced that any {expletive deleted} moron with half a brain would believe such {expletive deleted}. For God's sake man, are you {personal attack deleted} or something?
{I lovvvvvvvvvve being my own sensor!}
22 - Dave Nalle
Do they also want to pay taxes, speak english, and pay for thier healthcare Dave?
Nobody wants to do any of THAT stuff.
But I'm sure that becoming an internet terrorist is going to make you really, really popular.
Dave
23 - Arch Conservative
Internet Terroist?
I'm just expressing my extreme frustration at America's cavilier attitude toward illegals and the illegals arrogant smug give me give me give me attitude.
I should have said do and not want. Most legal citizens pay taxes, obey the law, and speak english...while illegal aliens don't.
Jet have you hugged an illegal today?
I'm the asshole because I am lashing out while the illegals who are raising the cost of your healthcare, lowering the wages of jobs for you as a legal citizen and committing violent crimes and then returning to thier native nations get a pass?
That's how you feel Jet?
24 - Sean Aqui
Arch, you don't suppose you're engaging in just a teensy bit of broadbrush stereotyping, do you?
25 - Jet in Columbus
I'm happy to announce that the very assinine and childish remark that Arch just made on my editorial entitled "High Gas Prices: Is Bush to blame? or "Houston We Have a Problem!" has been removed.
I really feel sorry for you Arch. Maybe it's time to visit your local priest or minister?
Love
Jet