Yet More About Gas Prices

Pete Geddes has made some keen observations:

Democrats favor higher gasoline taxes and higher gasoline prices — except when gasoline prices are high. While claiming concern about rising levels of CO2, they demand gasoline price caps to “protect consumers.” Don’t they understand that high gas prices provide the best incentive to transition to more environmentally friendly fuels? Democrats who object to higher gas prices simply aren’t serious about dealing with climate change.

Republicans favor letting oil markets “work” — except when gasoline prices are high. Don’t they understand the cure for higher prices is — higher prices?

Geddes also points to a fact that often goes unnoticed:

The oil business is a notorious boom-and-bust industry. But with BP, ExxonMobil, and Shell reporting record profits, the Tax Foundation reminds us that the biggest beneficiaries of gasoline sales are federal and state governments, not the oil industry. They note, “There have been only three years (1980, 1981, and 1982) in which domestic oil industry profits exceeded government gas tax collections. In the remaining years, gasoline tax collections consistently exceeded oil industry profits, reaching a peak in 1995 when gas tax collections outpaced industry profits by a factor of 7.3.”