Why Are Gas Prices So High?

What are the candidates plans to tackle skyrocketing gas prices?

I want to know about gas prices in particular. I don't want to hear about mass transit or improving vehicle MPG, or any of that garbage. I want to know specifically gas prices only.

Public Comments

1. Besides lowering the federal taxes on gasoline theres not much they can do. The price is market driven, and demand is exceeding supply.
2. Forget it. Lower prices today would only be possible if they allowed drilling 12 years ago. The liberals would and will never allow that.
3. They both are worthless socialist. Neither has a backbone and both pander to the worst in people. Their ideas include taking from those who have and giving it to those who don't. There is nothing FAIR about that. With both of these senators the average American who receives these 'benefit' will also experience less opportunity to find better jobs, since businesses will spend their money on taxes not employees or expansion. Don't worry both want to give amnesty to 20 million illegals. So be prepared to pay for them. If you have a labor job, you're going to lose it. Your boss can pay an (former) illegal 2/3 of your salary and the gov't will cover the health insurance via your tax dollars. Enjoy.
4. McCain is offering to suspend gas taxes for the summer months. Obama and Clinton have been talking about windfall profits taxes (which will be passed on to us, and so will make the problem worse).
5. They have no plans, the three of them just want to be president they will worry about plans if they are elected.~
6. Same old shell game, the current diversion of corn for ethanol has driven up the price of all food and what most people don't realize is that it takes almost the same amount of carbon fuel to produce ethanol so we are getting very little out of it. If the same resources has been spent on building more wind power infrastructure we would have actually seen less oil being used to generate electricity.
7. Neither Obama or Clinton have any plans to solve the problem. At least McCain's idea on cutting the tax during peak months is a solution of some degree. The Democrat liberals don't want to drill in Anwar or off the coast of Florida, where there is oil. They stop all efforts in using Coal to Liquid technology, but instead promote the bogus ethanol scam, using corn feedstock as a fuel. The pipe dream of electric powered cars has been around since the 30's as well as "alternative fuels", reality is, all the existing means of transportation is fueled by oil. So the only alternative is to use Coal to Liquid technology and cap the CO2 and pump it back into to the ground and cap it.
8. Obama told the truth. Gas prices will only go down, when the demand goes down. You may not care about fuel efficiency, or any of that garbage; but, specifically, this is the only way gas prices will go down
9. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/24/7863/ Make Oil a Public Utility by Ed Ludwig The furious moans and groans about gasoline and heating oil prices have been met with a public-be-damned attitude from the oil industry — and nothing is being done to rectify the problem. Prices continue to sky-rocket. Why not designate oil companies as public utilities? A public utility has been defined as “a business that provides an everyday necessity to the public at large” — such as water, electricity, natural gas, telephone service, transportation, cable TV and other essentials. Because of the need for and dependence on these commodities and products, the business of supplying them is readily subject to abuse. Without regulation, price gouging can become rampant in a time of great demand and economic turmoil, such as this.
10. Did you see when the five big CEOs of the oil and gas industry were called before Congress? Congress questioned the billions and billions each has made in profits but still there is no relief for the consumer. The CEOs had no answer for that. None. They just sat there. So expect to see $4.00 a gallon and the $5.00 and so forth. They have discovered we will pay $3.20 a gallon, and they will keep sticking it to us as Congress looks on. No candidate has really addressed this in depth. Why wasn't that question asked during the last debate? I'd much rather hear about that than Obama's flag pin for the 100th time.
11. They aren't going to do anything. They could cut the federal gas tax out to give us a little relief, but it wouldn't really help that much. To be honest, we're not really paying any more for gasoline than we were 5-6 years ago. No, really. The price of oil... and therefore the price of gasoline... has remained relatively steady over the last few years. IF YOU ARE BUYING OIL WITH GOLD!! The problem is not the price of oil. The problem is... THE VALUE OF THE DOLLAR!! Look at this chart... http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/oil-gold-commodities-47041507 You'll notice the price of oil comapared with gold has been tracking pretty close to the same. The value of our money has drastically been decreasing. It's all the fault of the Federal Reserve. They have increased the money supply (inflation) from $10 trillion to over $14.3 trillion in less than 2 years. Therefore, the value of the dollar goes down... and the price of oil goes up... and so does the price of gas. And everything else will follow. People wanna blame the oil companies or OPEC, but they haven't changed a thing. People keep talking about supply and demand, but that's not the culprit yet. It will be in the upcoming years, but right now our supply can keep up with the increased demand. See... http://www.reason.com/news/show/125414.html Blame the Federal Reserve and massive inflation. Ron Paul is the only candidate running who's even discussing monetary policy. He's been talking all campaign about the evils of the Federal Reserve and how they are tanking our economy and destroying our dollar.
12. The bad thing is that there is a oil field in the U.S. (North Dakota,Montana, and Saskatchewan, Canada) that is bigger then the Saudi Arabia fields and contains 10 times more oil then the North slope in Alaska and were not touching it.
13. That's tough since gas prices haven't gone up in real terms. The dollar has gone down. The price of oil has remained completely flat compared to gold, whereas oil has gone to over $100 a barrel. You need to fix the dollar and the economy and that requires drastically reduced spending. The easiest place to do that with least impact to Americans is overseas. Hence the sense even economically of a noninterventionist policy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaxdUPNYj2s Ron Paul is the only one with a plan that has a hope of working. The others consider their budget their future power, and want to expand rather than cut spending, each in their own way.
14. They will watch them as they rise! The president has no control over the oil companies. They can make the situation worse by raising taxes on the oil companies since they will pass among this cost to US. The weak dollar is what is hurting us. If the economy and the US dollar were strong, there would be a different situation.
15. Blow smoke up our asses and hope we buy it. The only way to lower gas prices immediately is to take off the taxes on them, but if oil keeps going up that won't stop gas prices from creping back up either. More then that the long term fix is to invest more money in renewale enrgy, drill in ANWAR and repeal the 1970 laws that ban us from building more refineries in the US.