Posted by
Rich from NW Indiana on Saturday, May 17, 2008 3:57:26 AM
There is no real interest by politicians in actually lowering gas prices. Really, there isn't. None.
If they were, the gas taxes would actually be suspended (a long time ago). That would lower the price by more then a dollar a gallon if you got rid of federal, state, county, and city taxes on gas. Much of which is spent on non-road projects, something that wasn't supposed to ever happen. It was for only road projects, not other things like rapid transit (used by less then 5% of the public).
If they were, the oil companies would be allowed to drill for oil in the U.S. Most of the oil in the U.S. is not allowed to be tapped. Alaska, Florida. the Rocky Mountains and California have huge reserves that could be drilled but are not allowed.
If they were, new oil refineries would have opened in the U.S. in the last 30 years. Not one new refinery has opened in the U.S. since the early 1970's. If oil companies had all the power that the liberals say they have, why hasn't there been a new refinery?
If we used U.S. oil, President Bush wouldn't have to ask the Saudi's for "help". With "friends" like the Saudi's, who needs enemies? We could be buying outside oil only from Mexico and Canada if we pumped more of our own oil.
Thanks to the stupid government policies on energy we are stuck paying high prices. That isn't going to end anytime soon because the only ideas in Washington are the same stupid things that got us where we are today.
Energy could be cheap, and it should be. It drives the economy. Why the government insists on us paying the prices we do are just plain wrong. I hate to say it but we will never drill for oil in those places in the U.S. (or build a new refinery) until we have no other choice. That would be really bad policy to wait for that to be a major problem.