Cut gas taxes and prices will drop

Liberals keep reminding me, “Iraq was all about oil.” That, of course, explains why gas is at $3 per gallon and heading north.

Or perhaps it doesn’t.

On the same topic, by now you’ve probably heard of infuriated congressional Democrats (and their idiot Republican counterparts) who are demanding an investigation into Big Oil’s suspected “price gouging.” As I understand Democrat-speak, “record profits” translates into “price gouging"—if for no other reason than to demonstrate to voters that Democrats supposedly care about “working families.” (After all, the basic economic laws of supply and demand couldn’t possibly have anything to do with current prices at the pump—especially not in an election year.)

Yet let’s recall that Democrats and their environmentalist friends have spent the last three decades fighting any effort to expand oil refining capabilities or allow drilling in the ANWR, the Gulf of Mexico, my backyard or anywhere else that might possibly yield an extra barrel or two of crude oil.

Sen. Harry Reid’s, D-Nev, Web site (reid.senate.gov) uses the “no new refineries in 30 years” fact to justify this idiotic assertion: “The truth is that the oil companies do not want to expand refinery capacity because it would cut into their record-setting profits.”

Yes, I can just imagine that. Big Oil got together and said, “We’ll stop building refineries so that in 30 years we can bank some major coinage.”

Of course, it’s such brilliant theories as this that prove your typical Democrat’s brain serves no useful purpose than to prevent their collective heads from imploding.

Also, let’s recall that the last time Democrats ran the show, their fearless leader was the former governor of Arkansas who claimed he never inhaled marijuana. By 1993, it was clear that he had never exhaled it, either.

On his watch, President Bill Clinton wanted—but didn’t get—to raise the federal gas tax to 26 cents per gallon. The ostensible justification advanced for said tax was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and global warming—both of which are apparently exacerbated by such useless and trivial endeavors as capitalism and bourgeoisie consumption.

Although Bill never actually articulated how the payment of an extra 26 cents at the pumps was actually going to reduce greenhouse gases—let alone the price working families pay for gasoline—the assumption apparently was that your typical Republican prefers polluted air and water over unpolluted air and water. That led to then-Vice President Al Gore casting the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, which raised the tax to its current 18.4 cents a gallon.

Gore, you may recall, was—despite flunking out of both law school and divinity school—widely heralded by liberals as a genius because he once wrote a book in which he wrote that the internal combustion engine was perhaps the greatest enemy of mankind. Of course, he would also go on to claim on CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer,” on March 9, 1999, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” Oh yes, and he would eventually appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court claiming that his 2000 White House bid was stolen. I believe this is about the time we realized Al needed some time on the couch with a mental health expert—or perhaps an intern.

The truth about the current gasoline prices is that big government takes 18.4 cents a gallon (with Nevada taking another 23 cents per gallon). By comparison, big oil’s cut is 9 cents per gallon.

So who’s really doing the gouging?