The funny thing is, high gas prices are mostly a good thing (Gas prices spur sound and fury ...):
“When oil companies are making huge profits and you’re struggling at the pump, and we’re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren’t right,” President Obama said in his weekly address on Saturday. But in the Republican response, Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma countered: “For more than two years, his administration has knowingly increased energy prices by choking off new sources of traditional American energy and smothering our economy in new energy regulations.
Last week, Mr. Obama touched off the latest flurry with a letter to Congressional leaders last week calling for the repeal of $4 billion a year in tax incentives for domestic oil and gas production, saying the industry was doing very well, thank you, and needed no help from the government. Republicans responded that the president’s proposal would only raise the cost of production and the price of gasoline, which now tops $4 a gallon in many parts of the country. ...
The debate may generate a fair amount of noise that provides one side or the other with a temporary political advantage but is unlikely in the end to have an appreciable impact on gasoline prices.
Higher gas prices cause people to use less energy. Using less energy conserves a nonrenewable resource and reduces the negative effects of pollution.The costs of higher gas prices are lost prices and lost consumption. Most economists agree that high gas prices are a good thing for society (i.e., the benefits outweight the costs) and that subsidies to energy companies are a bad thing.
Most politicians think that gas prices should be much lower than they are right now. The politicians' argument seems to be that their constituents shouldn't be required to pay about $500* more per year on a good whose price is determined in international markets. Increases in the cost of education and health care don't seem to generate the same sort of outrage. Weird.
*Note: 12,000 miles per year, 25 mpg, $1 price increase.
