What’s “Driving” The Gas Price Issue?

Deborah Venable

04/29/06

Oh, boy – here we go again! Everybody is going for a ride (or being taken for one) on this issue. This election year is bringing everyone out of the woodwork to comment on the economic impact of high pump prices. I knew it was inevitable that our esteemed Congressional representatives would call for an “extensive investigation” into the oil companies’ announcement of “astronomical profits” to check for gouging etc. There are some already insisting on taxing those profits by 50% - just because there ARE profits. Never mind the consistent losses by this industry while building it and expanding it to meet the growing demand for more and more gasoline and petroleum products throughout the world, (while also having to operate within the restrictive environment of governments’ control.) You see, in the eyes of well-meaning consumer advocates, the increased demand for a product should have NO bearing on the amount of profit a supplier of those demands should be expected to make. Clearly a violation of free capitalism, don’t you think?

Okay, so you want an extensive investigation, let’s make it extensive, shall we? Let’s put all the findings on the table. We don’t really need petroleum products to survive, do we? So, therefore, we certainly don’t need oil companies developing a market for products that we don’t need, right? Why do we allow it then?

Leave the damned oil in the ground wherever it is, bring all our boys and girls home from “wars that are being fought for oil.” Let’s park our private vehicles and walk everywhere we go, or get a horse for goodness sakes! Public transportation is out too, so park all the buses, trains and planes, and if you want to go abroad for vacation or business, find a sailboat! Let’s dump all these computers because petroleum products make up the majority of parts in them – not to mention much of the power that runs them! Light the candles and build a fire for warmth if you get cold. Forget air conditioning – if you’re hot, go jump in a lake or something. Of course nobody out there needs modern medical equipment or products to stay alive. Yeah, we’ll show all those evil, profiteering oil companies! They won’t be able to peddle their sordid goods on us ever again, eh?

Come on, folks! If anybody in the whole “free” enterprise system deserves to make a profit, the providers of oil and gas products are almost at the top of the list! I have never heard such ignorance espoused as I am hearing over the oil company profits! It is most obvious that people in this country haven’t got a clue about the capitalist economic system, albeit with all the government infringements weighing it down. Does anybody ever think about the cost involved in setting up and running a simple business – not to mention putting together what it takes to run a risky business involved in retrieving, refining and selling petroleum products and gasoline specifically? This is America, so it is quite different than a third world government deciding to cash in on the “black gold” contained within their borders. In the first place, without American ingenuity, these backward countries would have never figured out how to turn that black ooze into a cash crop anyway! And too many of the citizens of this country are worried about the evil imperious Americans who “exploit” the oil markets, which are the life’s blood for many a desert rat! Get real!

Before anyone gets the idea that I am so out of touch with the average American’s woes over rising gasoline prices, let me just tell you that from where I live it is a long walk down to a tiny grocery store to get a loaf of bread, so I depend on my private vehicle as much or more than anyone. And no, I don’t like paying $50+ to fill up my very fuel-efficient car once or twice a week. I just realize that the reason I am doing that has little or nothing to do with oil company record profits. Those folks you elected to represent you in government know that too. As they scramble around and demand their “investigations” of the oil companies, they are not about to tell you that they really COULD do something to ease our pain at the pump. It’s called decrease the damned taxes! You see, the various government entities receive far more in “profits” if you will from the sale of gasoline than the oil companies do!

I know that I am not the only one putting out this information, but is anybody getting it? Let’s continue our investigation, shall we? Take a quick look here but hold onto the last meal you ate, because not only are the law makers wanting to impose “windfall” profit taxes on oil companies supplying you the products you don’t need, some of them are calling for raising your taxes to address the problem! That’s right, folks – in the spirit of training us (read that brainwashing) to use less gas, they think they can tax us right out of our cars! Well, hey, it isn’t like it hasn’t been done before without success. They already got rich off the “sin” tax that keeps going up on those “evil” tobacco products as they force more and more users of the products to quit. I know that’s a losing battle, but I’ve always said eventually they’d get around to something everybody cared about.

In this vein, we will plunge ahead. “In 1932, the federal government imposed the first federal gas tax. It began as a temporary levy with a rate of just 1 cent per gallon.” Hang on to your notebooks and go here to read all about the history of gasoline taxes at all levels of government, from which the above quote was taken. You will find that Oregon was the very first state to impose a state tax on gasoline. Anybody know what Oregon has been trying to do lately? Try this on for size. If you think it won’t fly, well, I’ve got some swampland, folks! The brainwashing is almost complete now that will convince us that we need to be hooked into some kind of satellite tracking device for our safety and convenience. Ever heard of “On Star”? Hell, I even carry a cell phone – but I CAN turn the damned thing off if I want to. But, I digress.

So, Oregon is proposing a tax on every mile driven, and the means to accomplish that does not compute in a supposedly “free” society.

One more interesting source for information is here – they estimate the cost of filling your tank at various prices, depending on the size of your tank of course. There is even a link to report price gouging at the pump.

Here’s a handy little link that enables you to check for the location of the cheapest and most expensive gasoline prices in your state. Never accuse me of not being helpful here.

Honestly, I cannot remember a time when I have seen more hoop la over this issue. Well, except maybe back during the Carter debacle – you know, gas lines and shortages etc. History tells us that the last time windfall profit taxes were enacted, (your friend and mine) Jimmy Carter did it, and the result was that we became MORE dependent on foreign oil, with little of the increase in tax revenue for the government, despite their outrageous predictions. They can’t even learn from their own mistakes.

Just remember, this is an election year. If you like the way these bozos are handling the high gas prices, vote ‘em back into office. If you don’t, make that clear to whomever you DO vote in. If you don’t want to think about it – blame the whole thing on Bush. After all, he’s a Big Oil Man, don’t you know. He is out there saying just what you want him to say anyway – calling for that “investigation” and all. Do you think he is going to mention anything about gasoline “tax cuts” for goodness sakes? He’s still fighting for that income tax “carrot.”

Oh, and about that “war for oil” stuff – hell yes, there’s a war for oil! Just listen to everybody. I haven’t heard anyone say that they’d rather leave the stuff in the ground and do without it though. I haven’t heard the environmentalists ease up on any demands not to drill in this country, or build new refineries, or place restrictions on what goes in gasoline. I also do not see any less demand for the oil that is currently available on the world market – in fact that demand is GROWING as countries such as China seem to need more and more of it.

The congressional “war” is the most telling though. On the one side you have Republicans coming up with some far-fetched and ridiculous welfare-ish plan to send us all $100 to “rebate” some of our expenditures at the pump – if we qualify of course, (read that low enough income.) That is tied to demands to start drilling in ANWR, though, so don’t expect that one to fly. On the other side of the isle, some Dems want to give us a 60 day “tax holiday” on gasoline, (surely designed to make it easier for us to get to the polls and vote them in), and also repeal tax breaks to the oil companies and or tax all those evil profits or both, (in order to pay for our little “holiday.”) If you want a good laugh over how Congress and the president is handling this “crisis” take a look here for the real oil war that I’m talking about. It is far too funny in its original form for me to relate to you. The article is resplendent in politician frustrations and ends up talking about all the photo ops our representatives are taking advantage of – but I don’t think they walked to any of them.

There is a common thread throughout the comments, however. All the talk about taxes – can you find anyone pointing a finger solely at government for having CAUSED the current problem? I mean to the extent of suggesting that they would be for a total revamp of how government handles (taxes and regulates) the oil industry? The president has said he wants the oil companies to be careful with what they do with their profits. Uh, okay, Mr. President. That could be said to ANY business on the face of the earth. He means of course that he would like to see the oil companies look for alternatives to people buying their products! HUH? Sounds an awful lot like forcing the tobacco companies to pay for ads AGAINST smoking and “education” programs (more brainwashing) in schools that pit children against their smoking parents. Of course the irony to the whole thing is that government benefits the most from the successful marketing of BOTH products. Otherwise they would have both been outlawed a long, long time ago.

The results of our brainwashing to go for gas efficiency when we buy vehicles has resulted in more traffic fatalities - even with all the mandated safety features and coercive laws to use them. If we DO choose real safety over economy and drive the larger, heavier vehicles, we are not only penalized at the pump, but ridiculed by the environmentalists. The ever increasing interest in hybrids and alternative fuel source vehicles is not a bad thing, but can be compared to abandoning all coal powered energy sources cold turkey, so to speak, while they are still quite viable. There are downsides to every “replacement” technology for fuel and power. Government mandating has a history of causing more problems than it solves, but it sure sounds like that is the most popular course of action to listen to the politicians and the outspoken, high profile ignorant among us.

Anyway, if everyone cannot see the parallels between the oil industry and the tobacco industry, I just don’t know what else to say. Don’t expect oil to go away as the life’s blood of the economy (or the government for that matter) anytime soon. Tobacco certainly hasn’t, but both industries will continually be brutalized by the aforementioned entities. Even while foreign oil companies take a larger and larger piece of the American pie, we will be forced to compete against the growing demand from friends and enemies alike, and expected to both protect the oil elsewhere and ignore our own resources.

Of course our friend, Venezuela Dictator Hugo Chavez, who wants to “bring down the U.S. government”, gets a helping hand from any American who pumps gas from a CITGO station in the U.S. Why? Because the Venezuelan government OWNS CITGO – that’s why. Now, think real hard and come up with the real reason Chavez so warmly embraced noted anti-war activist, Cindy Sheehan as she spewed her hatred for Bush. No, this is not fiction, folks. Go here to check it out for yourself.

We can sit around and wait for whatever carrots our reps decide to throw us, or we can decide to dig a little deeper for the real story to find the real villains. We are literally being taxed to death, and if we don’t stop it, things will only get worse. We cannot continue to give into the brainwashing and throw this monkey on someone else’s back, folks.

We can throw our little tantrums with the oil companies, refuse to buy gas on certain days, boycott the gas guzzlers, and demand accountability for profits from everyone but the government, and all our problems will continue to multiply. We can maintain that no war should ever be fought for oil or other National interests, and do everything we can to make America look bad to the rest of the world. We can refuse to take responsibility for a government that thinks it needs to take a parenting role in our lives, while relinquishing every last freedom we have. But the big question is can we put our collective foot down once and for all and start showing a little respect for our heritage?

Something is definitely wrong in an industry that has not built any new refineries for their products in this country in over thirty years while the demand for the refined products has been steadily growing. This does add to the problem of shortages, which drives up the price – any fool can see that. Refineries are hard to get built these days, though. Ask Congress why.

Whether or not you want to hear it, if the supply of Iraqi oil is interrupted for any reason, the price also goes up. Can you say, anti-American insurgencies? Think we should have just kept buying our oil from Saddam? Don’t laugh. Many in this country do. Take a good look at the growing threat from a war with Iran. The same “no war for oil” drum is setting the cadence for the posturing on that one while all the history and facts are buried deep in obscurity. The risks are far greater than they have ever been before of both ignoring the Iranians or taking them out with another regime change. Either way, no matter what we do, we will pay a terrible price.

If the issue of petroleum access and pricing were totally removed from America’s list of concerns, we would have enough to worry about for several generations. Far too many people in the world don’t like us, folks – no matter what we do or don’t do. We must understand and accept once and for all the “driving” reason behind their hatred and mistrust of us. One simple little human characteristic failing accounts for the reason – envy. That’s it. When you are dealing with envy, there is nothing you can do to appease it, short of giving up everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING you have. Listen carefully to what the terrorists are saying, and to what people like Chavez are saying. They mean it, folks. They will settle for NOTHING less than the total destruction of America – not unless they succumb to our victory over them. To believe any other way right now is suicidal. I don’t like it any better than the pacifists do, but that doesn’t change anything.

This is one fight we cannot walk away from. We are either victorious or non-existent. When are we going to allow our government to do one of the ONLY things it is supposed to do for us and stop doing all the things it is definitely NOT supposed to do? That collective foot I mentioned earlier had better come down fast. I believe if all our enemies heard the sound of that foot hitting the ground, the “war” could be over quickly and with less damage to everyone. As long as the only sound they hear is the tiptoeing through the tulips that we’ve been putting out, our problems will continue to multiply. It’s time to put up or shut up. That’s the American way. Who do you think is out there marching in the streets of this country with that tired old message – no war for oil – even as we are being manipulated to accept that America is the problem and not the solution? They are certainly not people who understand or respect American Heritage.

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