Bad case of gas

Had yet another in a series of exchanges with a fellow customer at the gas pumps last week ... right around the time I read that some Senate or House "committee" was holding hearings on why oil companies are charging so much these days.

The conversation began as most of them have the last couple of years.

Fellow customer: "Fifty damn dollars to fill up. I'm sick of this shit!"

Me: "Know what you'd pay for a gallon for milk if we got most of it from the Middle East?"

It burns my butt to pay $3 per gallon just as I'm sure it does the rest of you. But here's another subject y'all can e-mail your elected officials about.

Until we start producing more and importing less, guess what? There's no telling where the price is going to go. The oil reserves in this country and off its shores would make a tremendous impact in lessening what we pay at the pump ... if only we could get our hands on them.

Some of you reading this weren't old enough to vote the last time this country opened any new massive reserves (which we know are there) or built new refineries.

Why? Ask the Libs ... and the tree-hugging environazis they represent.

We can't drill for our own oil in Alaska because of the potential impact on some sort of spotted owl or three-testicled antelope. We can't build refineries anywhere because of the potential impact on pollution ... and God help us, global warming (even though the scare tactic 30 years ago was that we were facing another ice age ... funny how that's not brought up much anymore). We can't drill off our coasts ... even though the Hugo Chavez-backed Cubans are doing so within spitting distance of Florida. (I'd pay good money to see video of what would happen if a boat full of environazis motored on out to protest the Cubans and Venezuelans.)

So we're not producing any more than we ever have ... less, if you throw in down time for repairs and updates on three-or-more-decade-old refineries. But we keep using more and more. I've read reports on the number of gallons of gas consumed in this country now, compared to five, 10 and 20 years ago, and they keep going up and up and up.

Economics is all about supply and demand. When there's an abundance of something, the price goes down. When something's in short supply, the price goes up, especially if the demand for it is high, as is the case with gasoline.

Libs point the finger at Exxon and Mobil and all the other oil companies. All the while, they ensure with their votes that we cannot produce more to meet demand or, at the very least, offset what we're buying from other countries, a great number of which despise our mere existence.

And remember this: John Kerry, while running for president in 2004, proposed a 50-cent per gallon tax hike on gasoline for some idiotic reason I can't seem to remember. (The fact he did is a classic example of what a dumbass he is ... Libs usually don't talk about their tax increase plans until after they are elected, ala Slick Willie in 1992-93.)

Anyway, we're already paying (as of 2005 anyway) on a national average 45.9 cents per gallon in federal, state and local taxes (or about $7.50 for a 15-gallon tank). That's more than 18 percent sales tax when gas is at $3 per gallon. With gas at $2, that tax shoots up into the 33-percent range.

Seems kinda high to me.

The moral to this story is, yeah, nobody's happy when they see that "total sale" number on the gas pump fly past $40 ... or even $50.

I just don't think many realize where their anger should be directed.

(Imported from May 25, 2007)