Gas Prices-Government?

Question

Gas prices are above $3.60 per gallon. Isn´t there anything that Government could do to stop that?

Answer 1

Duh...you've got two former OILmen running the country (or running it into the ground). Government regulation, even if you could implement and enforce it, wouldn't work.

When gasoline sold for $1.00 per gallon, Big OIL earned (let's say, as an example) a 10% profit margin - or 10 cents per gallon. Now, when gasoline sells for $3.00 per gallon, Big OIL still earns (let's say, as an example) a 10% profit margin - or 30 cents per gallon. What business wouldn't like to see its profit margins triple without any additional expense, overhead or major capital investment??

If the leaders of Big OIL had any decency, conscience, or moral fiber, they would cut their profit margins and slash the salaries in their executive board rooms.

But Big OIL is saving all those extra hundreds of billions of dollars in profits so they can hand out lavish multi-million-dollar bonuses and eventually use that money to capture the vast new market in alternative fuels, thus squeezing out the 'little guy' and touting themselves as heroes in the effort to sustain and improve our environment while they continue earning obscene profits.

The Bush/Cheney 'war' is certainly helping Big OIL as the number-one non-military 'benchmark' Bush wants the Iraqi Parliament to pass involves surrendering two-thirds of all Iraq's OIL fields to private foreign OIL companies, which - in effect - allows companies like Exxon-Mobil to virtually STEAL Iraq's most valuable economic resource.

Big government and Big OIL has colluded to rape the Middle East of its vast OIL reserves (Iran will be next), and to rape the American motorists by hyper-inflating OIL prices all so that a handful of wealthy elitists, industrialists and power brokers can become wealthier and more powerful.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and all their war-mongering friends deserve a special OIL-soaked, blood-stained corner of Hell where they can rot eternally, along with:
535 members of the most arrogant, incompetent, wicked, contemptible, cowardly, corrupt Republican-led Congress in U.S. history that stood by and watched Bush run rip shod over our Constitution
-AND-
535 members of the most arrogant, incompetent, wicked, contemptible, cowardly, corrupt Democratic-led Congress in U.S. history that promised to end this immoral 'war' if elected, and - to date - has done absolutely nothing to keep that promise.
May God DAMN them ALL!!!! -RKO- 11/06/07

Answer 2

The Democrats in congress tried by passing a bill to investigate and fine OPEC and big oil for price gouging. The conservatives shot it down. And the federal tax on gas is only 19 cents a gallon by the way.

Answer 3

Yes, they can cut taxes on gas. This could mean up to $.75 per gallon in some places. But since the price of gas is strongly driven by demand, the price of oil would probably just go up further.

As for naming one thing the Gov't ever fixed...well how about abolishing slavery. That was a pretty good one.

Answer 4

If you haven't been paying attention to gas prices, they've shot up recently. It's getting to the point that people...are going to keep doing what they're doing, but they're going to complain about it. And when the people complain, politicians leap into action like superheroes, but fortunately they don't wear tights because that would scare little children.

The latest action by the Liberal League...I mean the Democrats has been to introduce legislation to prevent price gouging by oil companies. To many, it's a pretty easy logical step to make. Oil companies are making millions off rising oil prices, so naturally there must be price gouging, right?

Yes there is. However, it's not being done by Big Oil. When you break down the cost of gas prices, you should see a couple of things. One, the evil Big Oil isn't making that much after you factor in the expenditures they have to make in order to sell their products. Yep, in order to get you that gallon of gas, oil companies have to pay for refining, advertising, research and development, and other costs involved with actually producing something. All told, the evil Big Oil companies make less than ten cents of the cost of a gallon of gas.

You know who is making a killing off high gas prices? Government. They put very little into making gasoline, but they take over 50 cents out of every gallon of gas in taxes. And since they don't spend much, if anything, to make gasoline, it's all profit. Let's see...less than ten cents profit for oil companies vs. more than five times that much for government. And Democrats think the oil companies are price gouging?

Another thing to consider when discussing gas prices is that oil is a commodity, meaning it is openly traded. The oil costs are based on what the oil companies pay for a barrel of oil. Higher oil prices mean more money that has to go towards buying the oil, and that means higher gas prices since those costs get passed down to the consumers. Unless the government sets up price controls on oil (which will be promptly laughed down by OPEC since they're not subject to our laws), government can't fix the problem.

So, government blames an entity making much less than they do off high gas prices while not being able to do anything about the problem, given the reason for high oil prices. Just another day's work for the Liberal League!

Answer 5

Yes they could by reducing their influence, via regulations and taxes and quotas, on the gas market but thats a pipe dream

Answer 6

Sure they could make it easier to drill and refine oil and gasoline by removeing some of the ridiculus regulations!!

I love the fact that the people that make it so hard to drill and refine oil are the same people that will be the first to complain when the price goes up (Enviromental Wackos)

Answer 7

maybe but the US government should not do anything to bring the price down.



You can bring the price down... car pool, walk, bus, move closer to work, work closer to home.

Answer 8

The government is making a killing, so no they won't stop it. Where do ya think all those "campaign" contributions come from.

Answer 9

The government needs to stay out of private industry.
Name one thing government fixed when it tried!! I'll tell you- there isn't one.
Invest in an oil company if you want to do something for yourself.