We shall let our friends at Advocacy Ink say it this time.
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What To Do About Gasoline Prices?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her liberal cohorts’ solution to high gasoline prices is to take us back to the fuel shortages and long lines at the pump of the 1970s. As Ronald Reagan said to Jimmy Carter, “There you go again!”

Pelosi Lieutenant, Representative Bart Stupak (D-Michigan) is pushing a bill that provides for the implementation of price controls on gasoline and other hydrocarbon products in the guise of protecting consumers against “price gouging.”

The bill uses the phrase “unconscionably excessive” in relation to a fuel pricing. What is “unconscionably excessive” one may ask? Heaven only knows because the term is defined nowhere in the legislation.

The federal gasoline tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. On average, state and local governments tack on an additional 27.5 cents in taxes per gallon. Together that’s 45.9 cents per gallon in taxes compared to the 13 cents the oil companies make per gallon. Who is “gouging” who here?

But Pelosi and Co. are not about to suggest that the government is guilty of “unconscionably excessive” taxation! Nor are liberals ever going to propose reducing gasoline taxes.

Due to the ethanol blending requirements congress has already imposed (thus greatly increasing demand for corn), the price of corn to consumers has almost doubled in the last year. Is the price of corn now “unconscionably excessive?” Will Congress’ next step be to impose a windfall profit tax on family farms which plant and harvest corn?

While members of the Pelosi team may be inclined to vote for this type of Socialist inspired, command and control, “sock-it to the oil industry” legislation, it will in no way help reduce prices.

When demand exceeds supply, prices rise. When supply is increased to offset demand, prices fall. That’s simple economics.

If Congress is serious about helping bring down gasoline prices, it will immediately vote to provide access to the 112 billion barrels of oil 656 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas currently off-limits to domestic production onshore and offshore. Let the free market increase supply, and prices will fall.