Dems forgetting that economics depends on demand....AND supply
“War
Over Gas Prices Explodes” is the headline in Roll Call today, which
writes, “[B]oth parties and President Bush ratcheted up the blame game
Tuesday and scrambled to propose an ever-expanding list of possible
salves.” Of course, it’s instructive to recall that Democrats have
been firing salvos over gas prices for more than two years. In fact, Senate
Democrats and their Senate candidates were saying, “Talk
is cheap, gas is not,” and promising that if they were given control
of Congress, they would act to alleviate high gas prices.
Two
years later, “Gasoline . . . is $1.25 more, on average, than it was when
the Democrats took over Congress,” as Senate Republican Leader Mitch
McConnell said at a press conference yesterday. Senate Republican Conference
Vice Chair John Cornyn elaborated: “Two years ago, Speaker Pelosi said
that if Democrats were given the majority, they would produce a common sense
plan for reducing the pain at the pump. Well, we’re still waiting for
that plan.”
Politico
reports today, though, that Democrats are actually working on proposals, but that
they are apparently more interested in scoring political points against
Republicans and demonizing oil companies than doing anything to address the
real issue of energy supplies. Their ideas apparently range from bad
Carter-era retreads like windfall profits taxes to demanding price gouging
investigations that have turned
up nothing in the past.
At
a Rose
Garden press conference yesterday President Bush warned, “Congress is
considering bills to raise taxes on domestic energy production, impose new and
costly mandates on producers, and demand dramatic emissions cuts that would
shut down coal plants, and increase reliance on expensive natural gas. That
would drive up prices even further. The cost of these actions would be passed
on to consumers in the form of even higher prices at the pump and even bigger
electric bills.”
As
Roll Call noted,
“Republicans said there was no mystery to rising prices — supply
isn’t keeping up with rising demand.” Indeed, Republicans took the
opportunity yesterday to remind reporters that Democrats have repeatedly
scuttled GOP proposals to increase domestic energy supplies. As Sen. McConnell
said, “[W]e’ve had an opportunity to build more refineries, and the
Democratic majority voted it down. We’ve had an opportunity to open up
additional parts of the outer continental shelf, even in a place like
