Today, President Obama pushed out a new social media effort to promote the payroll tax cut extension that the Republicans have already surrendered on. The president would rather play demagogue than take yes for an answer. For many Americans, the president claimed that the cut leaves about $40 a month into their pockets, so the president wants people to take to twitter and tweet what that $40 will mean to them.
It won’t mean very much at all in the face of $5 per gallon gas. And based on the earlier-than-ever appearance of gas at $3.50 per gallon, $5 per gallon gas is very much in our future.
In 2008, average gasoline prices had hit inflation-adjusted records nationally by the summer, but they didn’t climb above $3.50 a gallon across the U.S. that year until April 21, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. It happened again last year, but not until March 6.
But $3.50 a gallon gasoline is already here in 2012, weeks before refineries typically shut down for springtime maintenance, and weeks before the states switch from their less expensive winter blends of gasoline to more complicated and pricier summer blends.
“This definitely sets the stage, potentially, for much higher prices later this year,” said Brian L. Milne, refined fuels editor for Telvent DTN, a commodity information services firm. “There’s a chance that the U.S. average tops $4 a gallon by June, with some parts of the country approaching $5 a gallon.”
This price rise is happening despite the fact that overall demand is down about 5% from a year ago. What might $5 per gallon gas mean? A stalled economic recovery. Lost jobs. No vacations this summer. Retirement delayed again, or up in smog. More belt tightening for families while Washington just keeps spending with abandon — and most importantly, after Obama has scuttled the XL Pipeline, which was the most visible sign that he does not care at all what $5 gallon gas means to the average American.
Tweet away…
Gas prices like that make me glad I telecommute now.
Well no wonder the President wanted to push through on the contraception thing, because we’re all screwed.
Mr. Obama, let American and Canadian oil flow!
Well, it’s right around $3.55 per gallon in these parts. We’re expecting gas in Florida to be about $4.25 – $4.50 by it’s peak in May. So that $40 won’t even be enough for a tank of gas. Yeah, I really feel like voting for this guy.
I will be happy to see congestion on the roads alleviated, people thinking before they make trips. Smaller cars will again prevail, and an end to the millions of disgraceful wasteful SUV’s hogging up the road, requiring double sized parking areas It will be wonderful when they are a thing of the past. Some parts of the suburbs will be left behind and returned to wildlife and nature! Development in urban centers will start making sense, be done with aesthetic sensibility. The air will be cleaner! Noise levels will be reduced! We won’t contribute so much to the utter destruction of a Florida sized area of boreal forest and wilderness for tar sand filth. People will get outside and walk more and ride bicycyles. Maybe less fat a55es everywhere you look? People will car pool and take public transport together, get to know their neighbors. Less road-kill! Less money needed for the endless pothole brigade! More of our resources can be turned toward smart infrastructure, safe walkways, bike paths, trees and parks. High speed rail will become viable, when people realize they can relax and read a book in comfort while travelling 100 miles in under an hour. LOVE IT! Change is painful to some, but that’s life. The adaptable survive. The rest b itch and moan and fight like fools to keep everything the same, even if it just doesn’t make sense.
And less economic activity and less freedom to to along with all of your snobbish preferences. Great plan, skippy.
Obviously you live in one of the lefty enclaves in a big city.
For many smaller towns out in what you probably dismiss as “flyover country,” there are no viable mass transit options and the only rail is the freight train in the industrial section, with no passenger rail options.
Those are the people, by the way, that grow the food you get at your local store, raise the cows that give the milk that goes into your morning Starbucks latte, and raise and cut the lumber that goes into your expensive real wood furniture.
Y’know, I agree with this, to a remarkable degree. When gas gets expensive in Los Angeles, the freeway traffic thins out to such an extent I get where I’m going so much faster, I think it nets out the increased gas price.
I’ve been for $1/gallon or more federal tax on gasoline for thirty years, because classically automobile operating costs did not capture “externalized” costs of paving ever more land for parking etc, that was done in hidden ways through federal taxes, etc.
Before this was leftist cant, before it was green weenie talk, it was systems engineering geek talk. And for all of me, it still is.
But here’s the new thing: if gasoline gets expensive, maybe it will blast Obambus out of his hole, he can start supporting drilling and fracking domestically. The market wins, eventually. Let it work. Bring it on!
Oh yes, and most of all, $5/gallon gasoline should guarantee the defeat of the incumbent, but shhhhh, don’t tell him that.
Watch what happens in EGYPT this spring/ summer, before you choke on yer tongue in glee….XPPPPPPp……….
Yaay..I would love to see people like you alleviated.
It will mean a Texas population explosion.
Let me explain.
California won’t have $5 gallon gas…it will be $6 or $7.
You can’t take public transportation in much of California. (In Chicagoland, you can get almost anywhere, without a car)
California is not just broke, it is busted up, tapped out, face down on the canvas, knocked out cold, comatose, economically looking UP at Greece…ruined.
It cannot take any more hits to its economy. None.
It’s a ward of the statists now. If it didn’t have nice weather, it would be called the state of Tombstone. The only people left will be unionized government workers trying to find a way to give handouts to illegal aliens with no place else to go.
This state has NO solutions, only problems. It’s too leftist to institute austerity measures, is losing its tax base in waves and is owned by the unions and their pension thievery.
They have no answer other than to tax their citizens brains out. Raise traffic tickets to $500 each instead of $325 now. You can’t retire here, the housing prices, property taxes, Mello-Roos and other state thievery is beyond the ability to sustain on fixed income.
It’s no state for old men.
It’s a business unfriendly place, the laws are set up to destroy the hiring class of small businessmen.
So, what would $5 gas in the rest of the country mean for California? Helloooooo Texas!
Great, they’ll come here having learned nothing and vote Democrat. Maybe that’s Obama’s plan.
Great Ghu, I hope not. the last thing I want is for the nanny-state loving lemmings to migrate to my state. They voted for this madness, they can keep it.
We have no use for unions, no want for their definition of gun control, no desire for lemmings to define ‘fairness’ or any other of that horsepuckey they infliceted on themselves. They made their state, let them keep it – their liberal utopia on the shining sea.*
* yes I know there are some that did not, but seperating them out may be a bit harder than we want to work with. Maybe if they have a gun on arrival (and know how to use it)?
Don’t get a mortgage. The mortgage tax will eat whatever you don’t lose to higher gas prices.
Obama “did not increase taxes” my anatomy.