Gas Prices: The Democrats Latest Socialist Tool

Don't get me wrong, I'm as upset as anyone about the rising gas prices. But let's put some things in perspective here. O'Reilly pointed out last week the correlation between the price of a barrel v. the price of a gallon. I might be off a bit on my cents, but basically, when oil was about $30 a barrel, a gallon of gas averaged about $1.73. No one complained about anything back then. Now, a barrel of gas is about $70. If you do the math, we should be averaging $4 a gallon. I don't see how $3 a gallon when it should be $4 based on the gallon-to-barrel historic ratio and current HUGE demand for oil throughout the world, anyone can be complaining that the oil companies are guaging. They are making a profit. That's what companies are supposed to do in a capitalist economy. No one was offering to help the oil companies when oil was $10 a barrel, yet now they're successful, we have people like Chucky Schumer (as quoted on Drudge) saying 'whether or not we should break up the big oil companies. Enough is enough'...

This is dangerous ground we're treading when we start talking about penalizing companies for profiting. If, heaven forbid, GM turns things around and starts killing Toyota in market share and selling SUVs at $50K and up, will the government start talking about "breaking them up?" How about the farmer who is showing greater profits because demand for his produce has risen? Where was anyone helping him the three years prior when the bad storms wiped out his crop? It's capitalism --you take the risk. You take the risk and you either suffer from your failure or reap the rewards of your success. Capitalism. It's a beautiful thing. And we can't let socialist wannabes like Schumer take that a way from us. Give them an inch... we'll have a national health care plan, government controlled transportation, and the unemployment of France.

I'm sure none of what I've said makes you feel any better about how much you're paying for gas. Me, either. But it's about time we channel this outrage to make some real changes. We should be drilling in Anwar, exploring how best to harvest the shoal oil or whatever it's called in our western states, we should be giving tax breaks for oil companies to build refineries here. And, most importantly, we need to kick the research and development of alternative fuel sources into higher gear. Every gas station and car should be E85 equipped, etc. This is not just a financial problem; our dependence on unstable countries for this black gold that enables our country to function has national security implications. So it took $3 a gallon to motivate us. Let's get on this before we're up to $4.