Gas prices are spiking. That's great news, right? We have to wean ourselves off the stuff. At least that's what we've been hearing for years. Oil is dirty. We import it from nations that hate our guts (like Canada!). And moreover, we're running out. Oil is "finite." Finite much in the way water is finite.
So why aren't Democrats making the case that the spike in prices is a good thing? Isn't this basically our energy policy these days? How we "win the future"? If high energy prices were to damage President Barack Obama's re-election prospects, it would be ironic, considering the left has been telling us to set aside our "dependency""”or, as our most recent Republican president put it, "addiction""”for a long time.
If Democrats had their way, after all, we would be enjoying the economic results of cap-and-trade policy these days"”a program designed to increase the cost of energy by creating false demand in a fabricated market. As the theory goes, if you inflate the price of fossil fuels, the barbarians might finally start putting thought into how peat moss might be able to power a toaster.
In 2008, Steven Chu, Obama's (and, sadly, our own) future secretary of energy (sic) lamented, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." The president, when asked whether he thought $4-a-gallon gas prices were good for the American economy, said, "I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment."
How gradual? Like, what, four years? Or is it eight?
Part of "figuring it out" surely had something to do with the recent decision by Obama to nix the Canadian Keystone XL pipeline project that would have pumped 700,000 barrels of oil per day into the United States. More oil just means more excessive, immoral, ugly energy use.
Well, get used to it. You can't take three steps without stepping over some potential 10-billion barrel reserve of dead organisms.
According to the Institute for Energy Research, there is enough natural gas in the U.S. to meet electricity demand for 575 years at current fuel demand, enough to fuel homes heated by natural gas for 857 years and more gas in the U.S. than there is in Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and some place called Turkmenistan combined. Oil? The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the United States could soon overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world's top oil producer. There are tens of billions of easily accessible barrels of offshore oil here at home"”and much more oil around the world.
Yes, gas prices have spiked an average of 14 cents a gallon in the past month and about 30 cents a gallon since last November, according to AAA. Oil prices jumped to a nine-month high"”more than $105 a barrel"”after the Iranians shut down their own energy exports to Britain and France so they could start a much-needed nuclear program, which is, no doubt, for wholly peaceful purposes.
Given the fungibility of commodities and the track record of civilization in the Middle East, we'll likely always have to deal with occasionally painful fluctuations in the price of energy, regardless of what we do at home"”drilling and new pipelines included. Still, fluctuations have a lot better track record than price controls.
Subsidizing quixotic green companies or creating carbon credits won't stop the rules of basic economics. If the gas crunch starts hitting the economy, it's doubtless that we will get an earful of populist hand-wringing and that we'll hear the administration once again blame wealthy speculators and nasty oil companies.
Yet in the end, high gas prices are part of the plan. This is what the administration wants.
David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Blaze. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.
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Yet in the end, high gas prices are part of the plan. This is what the administration wants.
It's as if "consequences that can be foreseen are not unintended." Or something...
*check's puntuation adn speeking b4 hitting sakjfn*
Its Foreseeable consequences are not unintended.
And higher gas prices aren't just foreseeable, they are desired by the Administration. Obama is on the record supporting higher gas prices, back in the early days of his Presidency.
Can't blame the owners for raising the price, because it's the KOCHsucker's piss-on-Obama day.
Ohhhhh, I really hate you for presenting that perspective.
To raise Prices.
And blame Obama.
LULZ
Ain't that 'Murka You and me, baby Little pink houses
...He's just another libtard.
As I've mentinoed in a lot of places, why is $5/gallon (or pick your price) so horribly wicked when the money ends up in the private sector, but it suddenly magicaly becomes virtuous if the money ends up in the hands of Big Government?
It's easier to seek rent from the government.
Foreseeable consequences are not unintended.
Fun but entirely inaccurate.
people put on blinders and miss things all the time...in fact the advantage of markets over planned economies is that the assumption is that planners are incapable of seeing all outcomes while markets can more closely contain and more quickly adjust to unknown information.
A far better view is to never assume malice when incompetence can explain.
Agreed, although I've been reading it as a bad decision is not the same as a mistake.
Considering that we were essentially subsidizing low oil prices by way of supporting tyrants in the Middle East and killing lots of innocent people there, and simultaneously reducing incentives for innovation in the energy production field, I can't really fault Obama for this. As much as it hurts at present, this may be the one good policy that the Obama administration is remembered for in the future.
Bi-curious? -Datebi*cO'Mis designed for bisexual and bi-curious individuals to meet in a friendly and comfortable environment. It hopes that all members can make new friends and establish romantic relationships.
Higher fuel costs hit the poor disproportionately harder. Democrats are champions of the poor. Therefore, hey, look over there!
Of course, the solution is gasoline subsidies for the 99%.
haha. That'll solve high fuel prices the way gov't subsidies have solved high tuition prices!
than they just have to print more subsidy vouchers. Its not like they can't print fast enough, not with all the electronic gizmos and stuff, and pretty soon a six pack will cost 1 TRILLION dollars - I mean fast printing of money or money substitutes always works out for the benefit of society...
and the poor often drive older cars with poorer gas mileage. Not many Volts or Prius' in the ghetto.
the urban poar drive neons...lets pretend you knew that mmkay?
Yeah, all those 80's Lincolns, Cadillacs and Crown Vics and Pontiacs around my neighborhood are just for decoration, while their owners hide their Neons except when they are driving them. Do you ever say anything that's not completely stupid, you ridiculous cunt?
so you live in the hood? where?
Racist
If I had a Neon I'd definitely hide it. And wear a disguise whenever I drive it so that no one would know I own such a horrific pile of misery.
Well they would drive older cars except Cash for Clunkers burned the supply...
Let them ride the fucking bus.
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