Comments on: Gas: Taking A Page From Democrats’ Playbook

By: flash

flash — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:16:37 +0000

I like Kim’s description of political theater–that’s exactly right…both sides of the aisle want to “protect” consumers and it’s too hard to talk about the real reasons gas is so expensive: the cost of crude and state and federal taxes (wouldn’t want to let THAT cat out of the bag!)

By: smith

smith — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 17:29:51 +0000

Seems like Congress is coming up with ideas that are little more destructive than constructive. If we add taxes, we’re asking for higher prices when the cost gets passed to consumers. If we regulate prices, we are only going to interfere with the supply that we need. I’m thinking we should concentrate less on regulations/punishments for oil companies and start working on policy that lets them explore new sources and give us some more affordable product.

By: Faisal

Faisal — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 04:48:31 +0000

Why is it always us that make the sacrifices? Why can’t the government make a sacrifice and stop spending so much money on their pet projects in order to fund a comprehensive energy policy? The less we rely on Saudi Arabia and OPEC for our oil the sooner we’ll control our own fate.

By: Trainer

Trainer — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:00:58 +0000

I despise paying $3 per gallon now just like all of you do and therefore I have to oppose the WPT as well. I guarantee this tax will be passed down to the consumer they always are. Like “oliveewe” said . . . we either have to decrease demand or increase supply! That means we all have to take a hard look at our energy consumption and we need to get our leaders to find ways to open up supply. Even if it means we may need to open ANWR or the Gulf.

By: oliveewe

oliveewe — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 01:14:19 +0000

I am also opposed to a windfall profits tax. I admit that it’s partially selfishly based — I just don’t want to pay any more. Yet my opposition is also based on logic…a WPT is just going to be ineffective. What will it do to solve our energy problems? Our energy problems are in my opinion a result of our ever-increasing demand. Prices go up when demand goes up. Prices go down when supply increases. We must either do something to decrease our demand or increase our supply if we are to have relief.

By: original_mix

original_mix — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 23:16:04 +0000

Yeah, it is nice to see Congress showing it cares about lowering prices at the pump, but their solution–a windfall profits tax–would only raise prices, since the oil companies will just pass that tax down to the American consumer. Can’t they come up with anything better than that?

By: Pooh

Pooh — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:09:50 +0000

Methinks Hastert is playing politics as usual – Bill Maher went so far as to say that the Exxon guy should be the “Dem’s Willie Horton” this fall. And viscerally, if you were going to draw a cartoon of a kleptocrat, you could do worse…

By: Jim S

Jim S — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 19:17:00 +0000

Nader right? If Gore had won in 2000 we still would have gone after Bid Laden and taken out the Taliban if that’s what we had to do to get to him. In fact we actually might have gotten him since we wouldn’t have had Rumsfeld in charge. But we would not be in Iraq right now. How different do the Democrats have to be to kill that idiotic meme?

By: Bob J Young

Bob J Young — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:29:41 +0000

I tried to post a comment with a bunch of information, but the spam filter snagged it.

So I put it over on the moderate voice entry that links here. I included a bunch of links to graphs and data showing the current status of oil and gas, but the bottom line is a shortage of gas. Why that is occurring is pretty simple: demand has exceeded supply.

By: Bob Aman

Bob Aman — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:15:05 +0000

I’m still not convinced that high gas prices are bad. But yeah, the whole simultaneous record profits smells rotten somehow.

By: Kim Ritter

Kim Ritter — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 08:16:36 +0000

Maybe Ralph Nader was right when he said that there was no difference between the two parties any more. I am cynical about this because Oil execs. have already testified in the Senate twice this year about collusion on gas prices and manipulation of supply, and to what avail? Just seems like election year pandering to show that Republicans DO care about consumers. It’s political theater, cuz why bite the hand that feeds you —(check oil company campaign contribtuons for Frist and Hastert)? To date almost no one has been successfully prosecuted for gouging.

By: Gun-Toting Liberal

Gun-Toting Liberal — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 07:41:21 +0000

And Dems are sounding more like Republikkons… RepubliKKON spending has been so high, even the liberals are offended by the large Government ideas of the so-called “Conservatives”. Fiscal responsibility? Go LEFT