Democrats Not Walking The Price Of Gas Talk They Sang In 2006

April 30th, 2008 by Jake Hatlin | Posted in Getting After The Left, Talking Policy |

So wait a minute, you’re telling me that after throwing out the oil greedy Republicans and 15 months now of a Democrat controlled Congress that the price of a gallon of gas isn’t back down to under a dollar? Wasn’t this fixed in Speaker Pelosi’s famed First 100 Hours?

Turns out it wasn’t. Turns out the Democrats got everyone all worked up over a free market issue that the government really has no strong say over. Shame on them for exploiting gas prices to get elected. Shame on us for listening.

Per the Dallas Morning News, the cost of a gallon of regular gas in the city of Dallas hit an all time high on Tuesday at $3.52. And again, I want to emphasize that all this with a Democrat controlled Congress that shamelessly sold their soul to the issue in exchange for a little campaign leverage.

You see, what the Democrats conveniently left out of the discussion and what voters need to understand is that oil production is not a public service of which government has complete control over. Oil companies operate in a free market setting that allows supply versus demand to dictate price, and not what angry liberals scream into a microphone. If you look at the last ten years, our supply of oil has stayed roughly the same but our global demand has blown through the roof with the emerging economies overseas.

I’m reminded of a funny political cartoon I once saw that summed the issue up quite well, it was of an over sized United States tin-man and an over sized China tin-man each wrestling over a small can of oil. That is where we are today and that is why we have the price of gas that we do.

Now, the government is not completely at a loss for aiding in the reduction of the price of gas. There are some things that could be done but the Democrats are going to have to come to terms with the concept of you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

For instance, we could ease up on some of the environmentally driven regulations put in place for the construction of new oil refineries, which are widely credited for providing the oil industry with a disincentive for increasing its production capabilities. But to do so means that we would have to sacrifice some of our “Green” initiatives. Likewise, we could lift the ban that prohibits drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, a move that one Alaska Senator says would allow us to meet our needs right now. But again, Democrats are going to have to decide which is more important to them, lowering the cost of gas or what they refer to as their environmentally sound principles.

The end result I want you to take from this is that the Democrats have now painted themselves into a corner by promising relief at the pump and yet we as consumers continue to feel more and more pressure. It probably wasn’t wise for them to, in part, wager their election chances on this issue.  But since they went ahead and did, the Democrats now have to live with the strong likelihood that, come 2008, they’re going to have to answer to a lot of disappointed voters.

Can we at least reach one conclusion together, turns out that the price of gas wasn’t the Republicans’ evil doings after all.