Like Kids at the Pump
Proverbial kids in the candy store? It's not just for kids, not any more, since American adults have turned themselves into the same bratty, small-minded, short-sighted scourge as the adolescents they produce.
It is not that the children have become the adults so much as it is true that, in America, the adults have become children.
The current childishness about gas prices is a prime example.
Whiners, complainers, spoiled kids in a candy store. Want cheap gas? Sorry those prices and profits are so high, but hey, these are successful American corporations, doing what they do best. Want free gas? Oh, that sounds good. Come on, kids, how about a HUNDRED DOLLARS of GAS, FREE! We're your kindly, well-meaning, "in touch" federal government. We feel your pain.
So a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks. And the total amount of the giveaway sounds impressive: $86 million. But THAT, my sweet-tooth fiends, my gas-addicted friends, is a DROP in the world's biggest bucket. What is $86 million in the wake of the BILLIONS of dollars in profits being reaped every quarter by Exxon and their ilk?
The problem is, gasoline ought to cost more, not less, considerably more, through higher federal gas taxes (not oil company profits). But are there any elected officials out there saying that? That we need not to reduce the price but to shift the income from the corporate boards and shareholders to the coffers of environmental protection and clean up?
It is the defenders and protectors and restorers of our natural resources that ought to be getting rich off the price of gas. Because they are the ones who return the goods to us - and have any chance of making things good again - lessening pollution, slowing global climate change and degredation.
Instead, the oil companies, acting like victims themselves, make out like bandits. And what does the Congress ignominously offer us? A Snoopy bandaid.
It's not a generous payout. It's a payoff, a petty, pathetic payoff - and blood money at that.
posted by Lawrence @ 4:48 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Interesting notion, Jason. Hmmmm, now let's see... I live in Texas, and I know our gas prices are lower than most states due to the fact that TX produces so much oil (and oil revenue). I'll bet (and is it your theory?) that that trend continues nationwide (in the lower 48) with the red states cheaper than the blue?
But the real contrast is U.S. gasoline prices versus those outside the U.S. Then it's CLEAR that our empire is built on SEEMINGLY cheap oil and gas. Like I say, spoiled children.......
The entity that makes the most"profit" on a gallon of gas is the government. If you want to see the pain at the pump eased, contact your senator or congressman to remove the gas tax levied by the Clinton administration
I would be happy for the government to RAISE the tax on gasoline IF the revenue were used to alleviate the pollution and other problems gas consumption causes. This is the case in Europe, where gas taxes are higher - but then so is the seriousness with which European countries are working to clean up the planet - and keep it from having a catastrophic meltdown, meanwhile choking on its own fumes.
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