Saturday, February 25, 2012

About those high gas prices.

I thought we would take a break from the Palin e-mails to address another yet attack against our President.

Lately the GOP machine and  Republican candidates have been hammering Obama on the only perceived chink in his armor they can find anymore, high gas prices.

Except as it turns out that is not exactly a winning argument for them either.

This from the President's blog:

Along with President Obama’s initiatives to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, this increase in domestic production is moving us towards energy independence and saving American consumers at the pump. 

  • 640,000: Increase in the average number of barrels of crude oil produced per day since 2008 
  • 4 X: Factor by which the number of oil rigs operating in the United States has gone up under President Obama's administration 
  • 1.5 million: Decrease in the average number of barrels of crude oil imported per day since 2008 
  • 16: Number of years since the United States’ dependence on foreign oil was as low as it was last year 
  • 54.5 mpg: Performance equivalent that will be required for model year 2017-2025 cars and light trucks—nearly doubling the standards that were in place when President Obama took office 
  • More than $8,000: Savings at the pump per vehicle by 2025 thanks to steps the Obama administration has taken to increase efficiency 
  • More than $1.7 trillion: Total amount consumers will have saved at the pump by 2025 thanks to President Obama’s fuel efficiency program

It certainly appears that the President has done FAR more than most of his predecessors to reduce our dependence on fossils fuels, increase domestic production, and increase fuel efficiency.

So I guess the only question left to ask the GOP is, "What else ya got?"

17 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:55 AM

    The strange thing about current price increases is that it has come at a time of low demand and fairly abundant oil supplies. The reverse of how the "free market" normally works. If one didn't know better, one would think President Obama was being "set up". Nawwwwwww those big bad oil companies wouldn't manipulate gas prices to affect and election would they?

    Rick

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  2. J. Brennan10:21 AM

    Facts and graphs will never change the minds or opinions of those who hate our president. But they do make me feel vindicated and proud of myself that I have not been blinded by the lies of the haters.

    O/T There is a proposed amendment to SB 191 to require women to have an ultrasound before having an abortion. Not sure who proposed the amendment but thought you or your readers may be interested.
    http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/get_fulltext.asp?session=27&bill=SB191

    J. Brennan

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  3. Anonymous10:27 AM

    I hope Americans pay attention to the real reason for the cost increase to gas at the pump!

    The asshole Republicans are trying to spin it and put the blame on President Obama. But, would we have expected anything different from them? It's their constant mantra and it's getting old!

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  4. Unfortunately NONE of those facts will make it into the right-wing echo chamber. Rush and his ilk on the radio, and all the Faux talking heads, will be parroting THEIR narrative. Facts don't matter. It they say it often enough people believe it and it 'becomes' the truth. It's going to be incredibly hard to move this country forward as long as we have the right-wing echo chamber spewing their truths. Facts be damned.

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  5. Anonymous10:45 AM

    You are the KING of democratic propaganda.

    0/t I think my favorite emails are from late 2007. The ones written from NYC on that Oct trip are sweet. lol

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  6. lostinmn10:48 AM

    High gas prices are being driven by Wall Street speculators - pure and simple. If the 1% can't destroy Obama through the economy then they'll try to destroy him with things that cripple economic recovery. Gas prices hit hard and fast. We pay because the one percent don't want Obama to be re-elected

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  7. They have nothing, but that won't stop them.

    I sure hate to wait until 2017 to buy another car. Mine (an 18 year old Honda Civic) gets 40 mpg and no car payments in 15 years. I hope it will last that long. I haven't seen anything yet that I want bad enough to replace it.

    Have I mentioned...I LOVE our president! (Only a hundred times or so)

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  8. Dis Gusted11:09 AM

    OT

    After Obama's successful crooning, Romney tries to sing AGAIN at the grammies.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt4qGY2POZg&feature=related


    love the comments - "what language is that anyway?"

    It was predicted he would try to sing after Obama sang again...and he did...ROFLMAO

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  9. Anonymous11:35 AM

    You forgot to include Americas largest export is now gasoline.
    Which should beg the question if gas prices are related to supply then why are we shipping so much of it out of the country?

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  10. J. Brennan said...

    Facts and graphs will never change the minds or opinions of those who hate our president.


    You are so right, unfortunately. Here in Canada, gas prices are also going up. Of course, there are those here who want the people to think that the Keystone Pipe Line will solve that problem, but it is not going over so well. Maybe the people are a little more informed in Canada. Maybe it's because Canada is a major oil producer and exporter. Maybe because the oil companies are skewing the prices/ Maybe it's because of oil speculators. Probably, it's all of the above. But it certainly is not Obama's fault.

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  11. Anonymous said...
    You are the KING of democratic propaganda.

    0/t I think my favorite emails are from late 2007. The ones written from NYC on that Oct trip are sweet. lol

    10:45 AM


    Are you sure you know what the word 'propaganda' means?

    Reefer Madness is propaganda from the '50s and it's untruthiness is now a source of hilarity.

    Gryphen don't play the propaganda/untruthiness game.

    And i could see how $arah could be sweet prior to November 2008. It wasn't until then that her mental illness began it's total consumption.

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  12. Sally in MI1:16 PM

    I heard a creepy ad for Santorum on my way home today (I'm in MI so we are getting these annoying things every five minutes!) that said " the only way
    to protect your religious freedom is to vote for Rick Santorum." Don't they mean Catholic religious freedom, and possibly evangelicals? If you are Mormon, Muslim, or Jewish, or atheist, never mind. Find another candidate (preferably one with a brain.) I am so sick of these santimonious fools pretending that they care about religion, period. They have nothing to attack Obama with, so they make up the most heinous things ("infanticide," Newt? Really?) and think it will scare people away from the bad black man. Serve them right if nobosy showed up to vote on Tuesday.
    And about that: the Michigan GOP is inviting Democrats to 'cross over' and vote in the GOP primary. I could no more vote for one of these fools than I could jump out of a moving car. They are very concerned that low turnout spells defeat in November. No, guys, stupidity spells GOP defeat.

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  13. Irishgirl1:46 PM

    Is GinaM your daughter?

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  14. They got nothin'! As you can see from the candidates.

    Obama 2012

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  15. Anonymous4:11 PM

    One thing about this so-called talking point is this: are free market Republicans actually calling upon the President to use his power as chief executive to interfere with said free markets in order to bring the cost down? That actually goes against most of the rest of their doctrine of course...

    No, take it from this former oil company slave, it's the speculators as "lostinMN" has it. They are just exercising their right to manipulate the market so they can skim off the top. Whether it's a product like gasoline or crude oil itself, the market is working in its' own way. It would be "socialist" to insist on government controls over the industry like that. To have today's Republicans insisting on government action to cure anything is hypocrisy at its finest.

    The 'speculators' ("traders" within the industry) are multinational in size, have 100's of millions (some have billions) at their disposal, and have few effective controls over what they do. They aren't just Americans, or Brits, they are often none of the usual suspects, and have little to no allegiance to anything but money.

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  16. As a couple of people have pointed out, speculators (who are buying oil meant to be delivered months from now, but who may not actually take delivery of anything) are the reason gas prices (and oil) are going up so much today. If there was some requirement that they actually take possession of the oil they are buying, they wouldn't be doing this to the price of oil. Which leads me to a question no one has been able to satisfactorily answer:

    If oil truly is a "vital national security interest", as is often explained, then why do we allow its price to be determined by the profit-drive free market? The fact that we allow this suggests that profit-making is more important than our national security.

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  17. LisaB25954:39 AM

    Oil is a publically traded commodity and as such the price is dependent on what is going on with supply. There's no big mystery here: It's all supply and demand.

    Natural gas is the same thing, of course, I doubt anyone is going to complain about the price of their natural gas.

    However, that's how supply and demand work. Big supply, price go down. Limited supply, prices rise.

    This is capitalism at it's foundation, so I'm not sure Republican's really want to go there. :D

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