Note the AP headline:
"Democrats prod automakers on mileage"When did the Republican Congress prod anyone on anything, especially America's business community? There is a positive role for government in America, and a positive role for prodding business to do the right thing.
I was walking by a gas station last night (I don't have a car), and prices were above $3.00 again. This is abominable. And equally abominable is how the public simply acquiesced to gas prices soaring under George Bush's leadership. Bush promised us he'd get the Saudis to keep gas prices (oil prices) low. That means that not only did Bush fail, but he put into play the issue of whether a president has jurisdiction over gas prices - per Bush, he does.
Let me remind you of how quickly things have gone to hell. Gas prices averaged $1.60 a gallon in February 2003. Then Bush went to war in Iraq one month later, and prices have soared ever since. So there is a very real issue as to whether George Bush directly caused the doubling of gas prices in America. You can't blame September 11 for the increase beyond $1.60 - the $1.60 price was a good year and a half after September 11. And four months before September 11, gas prices were averaging $1.70 a gallon. And actually, gas prices fell in the months following September 11 - for example, gas prices averaged $1.24 a gallon six weeks after September 11. Thus, September 11 had no effect whatsoever on long-term (or even medium-term) gas prices.
Yes, China's consumption is voracious and it will affect oil prices in the long run, and a lot more (and just what attention ARE we paying to China under Bush and the Republicans? None.), but we're to believe that gas prices doubled in four years simply because of China? Excluding a very short-lived post Sept 11 bump, gas prices didn't increase at all from 2001 to 2003, but then they doubled from 2003 to 2007. China's economy has been soaring for years. The "new" factor in 2003 that's continued to date: George Bush's little adventure in Iraq. And in fact, Bush argued that the Iraq war would actually lower our gas prices:
Laurence Lindsey – President Bush’s senior economic advisor at the time — argued in 2002 that the Iraq war would increase oil supplies and lower prices. From the Washington Times, 9/19/02....Incompetence, and the myriad of lies that led to the Iraq war, come at a cost.
“The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil,” which would drive down oil prices, giving the U.S. economy an added boost.
