Here we go again:
Rising gasoline prices, trumpeted in foot-tall numbers on street corners across the country, are causing concern among advisers to President Obama that a budding sense of economic optimism could be undermined just as he heads into the general election.
White House officials are preparing for Republicans to use consumer angst about the cost of oil and gas to condemn his energy programs and buttress their argument that his economic policies are not working.
In a closed-door meeting last week, Speaker John A. Boehner instructed fellow Republicans to embrace the gas-pump anger they find among their constituents when they return to their districts for the Presidents’ Day recess.
“This debate is a debate we want to have,” Mr. Boehner told his conference on Wednesday, according to a Republican aide who was present. “It was reported this week that we’ll soon see $4-a-gallon gas prices. Maybe higher. Certainly, this summer will see the highest gas prices in years. Your constituents saw those reports, and they’ll be talking about it.”
Seems like only yesterday:
Policy differences between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been far and few, but a new one emerged on Monday over a proposed gas tax holiday. Obama says he’s against while Clinton says she’s in favor, putting her on the same side as John McCain, who proposed such a holiday last week.
Gas prices could hit $4 this summer, raising the ire of voters and putting pressure on presidential candidates to promise immediate action.
Speaking on Larry King Live on Monday night, Clinton outlined a series of steps to address the issue at the beginning of the show, reflecting the growing importance of pocketbook concerns among voters. “I would also consider a gas tax holiday, if we could make up the lost revenues from the Highway Trust Fund,” she said, without specifying how to make up those lost revenues.
Earlier Monday at a community college in the Philadelphia suburbs, Obama rejected a tax holiday as bad economic policy. “I’ve said I think John McCain’s proposal for a three-month tax holiday is a bad idea,” Obama said, warning consumers that any price cut would be short lived before costs spike back.
“We’re talking about 5 percent of your total cost of gas that you suspend for three months, which might save you a few hundred bucks that then will spike right up,” Obama said. “Now keep in mind that it will save you that if Exxon Mobil doesn’t decide, ‘We’ll just tack on another 5 percent on the current cost.’”
I’m so glad to see this election cycle we’ll be covering all the previous election’s greatest hits: Iran, abortion, gas prices, immigrant bashing, gay bashing, and the Bush tax cuts. Just this morning Santorum rolled out the “Obama isn’t a real Christian” bullshit, so we’ve got that to look forward to again. Maybe we should be happy they threw in contraceptives so we could have some new material this election.
GAMETIME:
Who will be the first Republican to call for a national gas tax holiday? My guess- ROMNEY.
Who will be the first Democrat to trip over himself rushing to a microphone to undercut Obama and call for a gas tax holiday? My guess- MANCHIN.
cathyx
I know that if the gas tax was suspended for a day that I would then be able to pay all my bills with money left over to splurge on something.
wrb
ummmm…
Hillary?
cat48
Don’t forget the scary, screamer; Rev. Wright. Santo brought him up early this week, so it’s in his stump speech now too. What’s old is new again……..
WereBear
When the Republicans keep us from solving any of our problems, of course they are going to be coming around again!
Soonergrunt
If they want to rerun the 2008 election, I say let them do so. We’ll win by even more this time.
JPL
Who will call for the fed government to shut down to pay for the darn tax holiday.
MSNBC.com has an article on Santorum questioning Obama’s religious beliefs also, too.
First read had an article up earlier about Santorum calling the President’s weak on foreign policy. Romney must be loving this.
BTW..Unless it has changed Catholics aren’t normally viewed as Christians. Someone better tell Santorum.
Baud
The result last time was a good one, so I don’t mind a repeat of 2008.
Maude
On the bright side, the Republicans are recycling.
MikeJ
@wrb: No, Hilary is Secretary of State and won’t be making public statements about domestic policy that her boss disagrees with, regardless of what she actually thinks.
scav
OT. NYPD monitored Muslim students all over Northeast
MonkeyBoy
I recently read somewhere that consumer demand for gas is not rising and thus not driving up the price of gas. Instead speculation that the price of gas will rise is driving up the price of gas.
wrb
@MikeJ:
my comment was tongue-in-cheek. The post itself contained this:
Policy differences between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been far and few, but a new one emerged on Monday over a proposed gas tax holiday. Obama says he’s against while Clinton says she’s in favor, putting her on the same side as John McCain, who proposed such a holiday last week.
Anoniminous
Where are the Ayers of yesteryear?
Where are the pearl-clutching hissy-fits over “While He/Whitey?”
Where is the panic from whence a small ACORN doth spring?
WyldPirate2
Gas prices are going up because of.speculation by Romney’s MOTU bbuds like the hedge fund wankers. Demand for gas is actually down.
Just Some Fuckhead
That must have been a tough decision for congressional Republicans: stop manipulation of the oil and gas markets from producing $4/gal gas or allow it to happen and use $4/gal gas a political issue.
JPL
@WyldPirate2: Our refineries that our receiving large subsidies are selling to Latin America and South America.
BGinCHI
Who will be the First Engineer to give us full power even though our Dilithium crystals are damaged:
MR. SCOTT.
Maude
@Just Some Fuckhead:
They probably prayed about it.
BGinCHI
Price of gas goes up, GOP stalwart (oil companies) make bigger profits.
Price of gas goes up, GOP can use it to pummel Obama.
The price of gas will go up.
Trakker
Oh, this is easy.
Want $1.89 a gallon gas again? Vote for the Republicans, who will do just what they did the year before Obama took office: crash the economy, throw millions out of work and make millions more scared that their job will go next. People stopped driving, gas was plentiful. Yeah, that’s why we had cheap gas. Do you really want to go back to the “Good ol’ days?”
cathyx
@BGinCHI:The oil companies will see to it that we never get dilithium crystals.
SW
They let the Israeli lobby, who want to see him defeated talk him into leading a boycott of Iranian crude oil and then they are surprised when the price of crude oil takes off? Oh boy.
Kyle
Like the $4.69 a gallon I paid back in the summer of 2008, when the Forgotten Repuke Chimp W Bush was in the White House and speculators were running hog-wild under the noses of the Mr. Magoo Republican-run SEC? This is a reason to let Repukes near power again?
Stop your drunken blubbering Boner, Orange History Month will be here soon.
Roger Moore
@WyldPirate2:
In the US. Worldwide demand for gas has been rising, which is why the US is now a net exporter of gasoline (though obviously still a net importer of crude petroleum) for the first time in decades.
David Koch
@SW: Mel Gibson was right – the Jews start all the wars.
Mike G
US oil imports are actually below 50% of consumption for the first time in years; this number peaked at 70% in the middle of the last decade. If you credit exported refined products against imported crude the import dependency is even lower. North Dakota has risen out of nowhere to become a major domestic producing state.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
According to Wonkette, just the other day Santorum said ‘”This is just crap”. There’s no way I’m voting for a potty mouth.
wrb
@Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937:
No lubricant?
FairEconomist
Long-term prices are going up because of peak oil. To oversimplify, every barrel of oil has a cost to bring it to market. The cheap barrels are all drilled and production from those fields is falling; to keep production up requires an ever-increasing oil price to make more barrels worth drilling.
Obama’ response should be to agree to a gas tax cut, but insist it be deficit-neutral and tied to to a millionaire’s tax surcharge. That would put the Republicans in a nasty political pickle.
Yevgraf
I’m not distressed over the notion of slaughtering speculators and their immediate families wholesale.
tweez
Gas tax holiday, sure. The REAL money is riding on “drill, baby, drill.”
PeakVT
@FairEconomist: Hardly. They’d just promise everyone a tax cut.
The Fat Kate Middleton
Question? No contraceptives for women? No, no, no. We’re done with that. Keep up with us here. The outrage du jour is gas prices. Gas prices! Got it? God. Can you please not be so slow?
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Fact: The stuff’s going away. Sooner than anyone expected.
Adapt or die.
bob h
When you turn over the rocks in situations like this, speculators at Goldman Sachs are always to be found. How about running against them, huge contributors to Romney?
Gas at $5 per gallon is the Republican’s best hope.
SFAW
wrb @28 wins this thread.
Re: the “not a real Christian” impending discussion: perhaps that explains the e-mail I received from a “Chief Editor Korir”, promising a two-fer: one vid of B. Hussein Obama, Jr., professing his allegiance to Allah, plus some other one that seems to be attempting to cash in on the “Whitey” Houston media circus.
Greg
Wrong fossil fuel producing state. I’m going to say Landrieu.