I can understand the concern over high gasoline prices as they affect our personal finances and lifestyles, but this fixation over the phenomenon as some sort of permanent and ruinous economic armageddon is rediculous.
Many countries around the globe have had to deal with inordinately high gasoline prices for decades because of high government taxes.
Now that we in the U.S. are experiencing near record prices for gasoline, keep in mind that they are still nowhere near that of our foreign counterparts. Higher crude prices are the culprit, and that reflects market conditions- not intervention by any private or public (federal) entity.
Expensive gasoline doesn't signal a "problem" yet everyone demands an instant and dramatic "solution". Common sense would dictate that the same market forces that drove crude oil from $140 in July 2008 to $40 in January 2009 may in all likelihood occur once again.
Yet- in an effort to mollify voters, our President and many Congressional Democrats have found the perfect scapegoat and they are putting in motion the pieces that will not bring down gasoline prices (as he would have you believe) but will usher in his second term.
Will Obama and the Democrats increase federal gasoline taxes ten-fold in order to reign in consumption, reduce demand, and generate revenues as done by other countries?
No.
Will He stop printing money and halt the dollar's devaluation thereby reducing world prices for crude oil?
No.
He'll go after the middleman by taxing the very people who risk billions of dollars annually by looking for, drilling for, producing, transporting, refining, and marketing..... crude oil.
Do the aforementioned foreign countries with exhorbitant gasoline taxes do this?
No. They see the value of industrial output and realize that taxing production on the front end will only reduce... production.
We use about 140 billion gallons of gasoline in this country each year.
2010 Gasoline Consumption | American Fuels
If Obama increased motor fuels taxes by 30 cents per gallon, he would immediately reap (on an annual basis) the $40 billion in revenues that he otherwise proposes to tax on the petroleum industry.
Shirley it would be a big blow to consumers initially, but as crude oil and subsequent gasoline prices decline (and they will)- the effects will be mitigated.
Obama is an even bigger fucktard than Carter ever was. And the public is licking the bullshit from his pink palms.