The gasoline "crisis" has brought out the worst in everybody, including the ridiculous spectacle of craven Republicans shamelessly trying to outpander the Democrats. Investigate Big Oil! Give everybody a hundred bucks to tide them over! For the record, if that matters anymore, here's a pretty good breakdown from NPR of just where your gas money goes. It includes this surprisingly honest and accurate assessment:
So you have a situation where demand has been growing steadily and inexorably, and the system of supply is quite vulnerable. That's the basic recipe for high prices.
Well, yeah. It's called supply and demand, and it's working today exactly the way it has for hundreds of years.
What do the Republicans have left, by the way, that distinguishes them from the Democrats? They're spending like drunken soldiers.* They groveled at the public opinion polls over the Dubai ports deal. The fumbled immigration and let Democrats move to the right of them on border security. I think a rout by the Democrats in November is looking more and more likely, no matter what anybody says about how safe most districts are for incumbents. And this won't happen because Democrats have a plan or a message similar to Newt Gingrich's Contract With America. Republicans are doing it all by themselves.
*I know the phrase normally used is "like drunken sailors," but I was in the Army and think the Navy deserves a break once in a while. We also lost our ability to exercise fiscal restraint while under the influence. The only difference between wastrel soldiers and sailors and members of Congress is that we usually woke up the next morning, hung over, perhaps with a tattoo and an unpleasant memory of a strange woman, and moaned, "Where did all that money go? Whatever was I thinking?" Members of Congress seem to be taking the advice of one of my uncles on how to avoid a hangover: "Well, son, you just keep drinking."
