I wish the candidates were arguing over BREAKING UP the oil companies...

...instead of this petty nonsense about whether the gas tax should be suspended during the summer.

The price of gas has skyrocketing since Bush took office and the oil companies have more money than they know what to do with.

The gas tax is a tiny percent of the total which people pay for gas.

For reasons which have nothing at all to do with price gouging. Demand for oil has greatly increased over the past decade, as India and China have become increasingly industrialised. Global oil PRODUCTION, however, has been flat for three years now (production, as far as can be known at present, appears to have peaked in the summer of 2005, and has plateaued since; new discovery has been lagging behind the levels needed to replace current output for over a decade). Part of the observed increase in price comes from supply constraints and increased demand (supply of a limited commodity remains flat, demand increases, the price goes up--it's very simple and basic economics); part comes from the fact that the US dollar has lost 50+% of its value relative to the Euro over the last six years.

Anyone who blames the oil companies and the oil companies alone for the increases in the price of oil is profoundly ignorant of the realities of the situation and of basic economics.

Their profits would stay the same if they were increasing the price by the same amount over what it costs them.

The markets set the price on a supply/demand basis. (This is why oil was at $10 a barrel c. 1998 with oversupply and slack demand due to a warmer-than-usual winter). Again, this is simple and basic economics.

NT

Domestic petroleum production represents just one-fourth of what we use in the US every day (five million barrels a day out of 20 million). The remainder would have to be made up with imports. Which will be subject to the demands of the global market as far as cost goes.

The US consumes one-fourth of the world's oil and has five percent of the population; this is an unsustainable situation. We need a drastic change in our way of life; it is unsustainable and economically unviable.

NT

It's the only effective long-term solution. High fuel prices are a fact that probably won't go away for the foreseeable future. Therefore a reduction in automobile dependence is the only reasonable answer.

NT

and the issues the media is pushing is also sickening compared to the war and the economy. They aren't doing their jobs or letting the sunshine in to see what's going on behind the scenes. If they did their job back in 2002 maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.