We’re all to blame

During our road trip back from Gatlinburg last weekend, my son asked me a pointed question after hearing me gripe about the price of gasoline for hundreds of miles. His question was basic. Why doesn’t the government do anything about the price of gas? This is a government, mind you, which toppled the most powerful leader in the entire Middle East, going in to ensure the flow of oil from the Iraqi oil fields so the flow of oil would not be affected by folks dressed like Old Testament characters and someday make us pay upward of $3.60 a gallon. Oh, oops. Mission not accomplished. Frankly, there’s a ton of reasons for the increased cost of gasoline. First off, the value of the dollar worldwide has decreased markedly, partially due to the Fed’s continued slashing of interest rates because we’re having to bail out folks who decided they’d buy a half-million dollar house on a $50,000 a year income. If it was up to me, I’d tell them to have a yard sale and buy a camper, but to do that would cause a toppling of the greedy businesses who made the loans in the first place thereby plunging us deeper into the mortgage crisis. The whole problem is that each time the prime interest rate is cut, the dollar gets weaker worldwide and that causes us to have to pay more for oil. Actually, as a sidenote, there is one upside to the weak dollar, that being we are hitting an all-time high for exporting of products as the world is now able to afford the well-built American products which were once out of their financial reach. That’s right, our trade deficit is shrinking. Of course, that’s a lot of comfort to me while I’m pumping nearly $4-a-gallon gas. There are also other issues driving up gas costs such as higher demand from industrializing countries like India and China, and our inexplicable reluctance to tap our own reserves in Alaska and our unbelievable short-sightedness in not building more refineries. And, the biggest reason for the higher prices is, what it’s always been ‘ pure greed. The major oil companies are seeing record profits, and just like any business, they’ll charge as much as they can to maximize their profits. And, seeing demand in the U.S. is just now leveling off, they know how much they can get. But, back to my answer to my son’s question of why doesn’t the government do something? My answer, because they never look past today when they plan things and they never learn from their mistakes. We saw this all before in the 1970s and we solved it by tapping more domestic reserves, researching alternative fuels and driving smaller cars. And this was led by a Democrat, Jimmy Carter. Yet now, in 2008, we are again dependent on foreign oil, we won’t drill our own territories and everyone drives a monster SUV that gets 10 miles a gallon. Why is the government short-sighted? It’s because our officials are a reflection of the people who elect them and the voters of America are short-sighted and never learn from their mistakes as proven by all the big cars we are driving and all the folks who bought the half million dollar houses when they can’t afford them. We can expect no better from our government than the message we send to Washington. And, until we send a concerted message about the price of gas instead of whining about things that don’t amount to a hill of beans, we will continue paying through the nose at the pump and will relish the day we only paid $3.69 a gallon. Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].