Barack Obama claims the reason gas prices were low when he took office was because the economy was so bad
There was one answer from the debate last night that I found very interesting, and that was Barack Obama’s answer to high gas prices. Mitt Romney mentioned that the high price of gasoline is proof that Barack Obama’s energy policies aren’t working.
Barack Obama turned around and blamed George Bush’s economy for the low gas prices:
He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was $1.80, $1.86. Why is that? Because the economy was on the verge of collapse
It was interesting to hear Barack Obama blame George Bush for low gas prices, but I understand Barack Obama’s theory; people had less expendable income therefore they traveled less and the demand for gas went down leading to the drop in gas prices. But isn’t this an admission that Barack Obama feels high energy prices are the new normal? Isn’t he basically saying Americans have a choice to make; a bad economy with low gas prices or a good economy with crippling gas prices? Is he actually trying to make the case that the high gas prices are proof the economy is improving? If so, does any of this bother him?
I refuse to believe we cannot have both a good economy and low gas prices like we have had in the past, unless of course Barack Obama wants high gas prices and we know he does. He admitted it when he was running for president when he said energy prices would skyrocket under his plan. Barack Obama also stated he didn’t have a problem with high gas prices, only with how quickly they rose because people didn’t have time to adjust to the new prices.
And he has brought people into his administration who concur with higher gas prices; Energy Secretary Steven Chu once said he wanted to see Europe’s gas prices in the United States. (He has since walked it back when it began to cause Barack Obama some grief, but does anyone really think he has changed his mind?) There was also Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood who stated the Obama regime must coerce people out of their cars.
So Barack Obama has a record here; he only opposes high gas prices when he can use it for political gain against an opponent. But as president he sees this as a crisis which he can then use to push his radical global warming, cap and trade policy. So yes, Barack Obama thinks his energy policies are working just fine.
America's Watchtower 
Well of course. The reason for food prices through the roof is because there is no inflation and his economy is booming. So following this logic let’s pray for a depression; food, energy and gas prices will plummet!
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Amen to that!
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So, by Obama’s logic, the gas prices are high right now because the economy is doing so good. The man is an idiot! I complain in my post today that no one (Romney) points the finger at Bernanke and his Quantitatibe Easing policies which are devaluating the dollar and causing oil and food prices to go up. The demand for gasoline right now in America is at a ten year low. Oil and, thereby, gasoline prices would be lower if all other things were equal. Things are not equal because of the devalued dollar.
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Why is it that nobody is talking about QE? Is it that they think the American people won’t understand it?
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Unfortunately, if Romney would have started talking about QE Candy Crowley would have cut him off.
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You’re right about that!
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The guy is a clueless, lying MORON…
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Yeah he is!
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Greed and speculation. These are the reasons why gas is so high. It actually started with an incident here in Phoenix. If you remember, in 2003 a pipeline that carried raw oil from Tucson to Phoenix broke. Gas prices at that time were around 1.59 a gallon. It jumped to 3.00 a gallon until the pipeline was fixed, then fell back, but only to 1.92 a gallon. This is what started the oil companies testing of the wallets. People were ‘ok’ with paying the inflated prices, even though there was absolutely no shortage of gas. The small pipeline only belonged to 1 oil company, so why did ^all^ the oil companies raise prices? And as well, it only could possibly affect the Phoenix metro area. Why did prices go up accordingly across the nation? Greed, pure and simple. The rest is pure speculation. You only need to hear a whisper of a hurricane 200 miles from any offshore rig, and prices jumped .50 a gallon or more, even when the storm never came close to anything the oil companies owned. This is when the oil companies started to record multi billion dollar quarterly profits. And both presidents promised to investigate and get to the bottom of ‘high gas prices’. Of course we never hear a word from the government ever again as to the result of the ‘investigation’. With pretty much everything in the country being transported by truck across the country everything went up in price. Until of course the housing market crashed. Then, and only then did the price of gas come back down to where it *should* have been around 1.50 a gallon, and even then the oil companies weren’t ‘losing’ any money. Even before we came out of the recession the oil companies had gas back up to 2.49 a gallon and we’re still in a recession and you see where we are. Greed and speculation.
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Reblogged this on Freedom Is Just Another Word… and commented:
How stupid is this?
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Thank you.
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I’ve given up trying to figure out why Obama says something. Can’t imagine actually talking to the guy—-it would be like trying to communicate with a South African Bushman. I did however, think that in general gas prices increased during good economic times as the demand was up unfortunately that means if and when the economic improves they will go even higher. The current price is fast becoming the norm.
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I think you are right about the gas prices becoming the norm, it doesn’t look like they are going to go down anytime soon and nobody in the MSM seems to care about this anymore.
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What we see with gas prices is the free market that you guys love so much – together with a bunch of players we’ll call parasites. These are the speculators, who, by one account (the Chairman of Shell) add $30 – $40 to the price of a barrel of oil.
More domestic drilling won’t really change anything because we don’t have separate markets for domestic as opposed to foreign oil. We sell our oil at world market prices. If we were to produce enough to drive prices down (unlikely, given the worldwide demand), another nation could drive them back up easily enough (remember OPEC?).
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Sonny’s response above has a lot of truth as well. Gas companies don’t want pissed-off consumers, but they want as much as the market will bear, adn I think they’re trying right now to fine-tune the amount that we’ll pay without going ballistic. I think they know that $4 a gallon is out of the question, but they think the tipping point is awfully close.
TGY
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I think you will see if you go through the infrequent posts I have done on the price of gas that I am not complaining about the prices–although I am not happy about them–but rather the way the MSM is covering the prices now compared to when Bush was president. And the indifference Barack Obama has now about the prices compared to when he was running for president in 2008. I just want a little consistency, that is all.
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One of the main reason for the gas prices to spike at this time of year is that there are dozens of boutique blends that refineries have to convert to. Regions, states, summer, winter blends Its nuts. California had to get a waiver so they could start their winter blend early and get refined gas elsewhere due to a fire in a refinery. They do not allow any further pipelines to be laid, thus they are receiving that which they wrought.
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Exactly, all these blends also help to drive up the prices and we saw in Cali what can happen because of this.
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His answer to that question was bizarre and awful. It really displays how clueless he is about the economy. I would have loved to hear a question about QE3 and how destructive it is to our economy and how Obama supports it.
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It was a strange answer and it seems to have gone unnoticed and unquestioned. If I were Romney I would hammer him on this for the next three weeks.
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Seriously, is anyone really surprised that he somehow managed to twist the facts around and blame President Bush for something? When it comes to his predecessor, he has a one track mind. He never passes on an opportunity to point fingers at Bush.
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But Michelle said to today that Barack never blames other people and never points the finger, hard to believe she could say that with a straight face, or perhaps even she stopped listening to what Obama says.
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Our First Lady is delusional if she really believes those words.
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I don’t think she believes them, I think she hopes others will believe them.
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The way gasoline prices at the time tracked the DOW is really astounding. Here’s a link to a chart someone put together, if you care to look:
What the President didn’t mention the other night is that electricity and natural gas prices have declined, and it’s going to be cheaper for me to heat my house this winter.
And food prices are rising not because of a lack of inflation, but because of a lack of water – our ag sector is dealing with a multi-year drought that’s going to lead to more price raises down the road. Cattlemen are slaughtering their herds because they can’t afford to feed them, because the cost of feed is so high – because of the drought. Props to Romney for not blaming President Obama for the drought, but I won’t be surprised if some of his supporters do figure out a way to lay it at the President’s doorstep.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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Food prices are also rising because of the price of transporting the food. I read somewhere, and I apologize but I don’t remember where, that the distance food travels before the average consumer buys it is something like 1500 miles so gas prices to affect the price of food as well.
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Steve, the cost of transportation has always been a major component of the price of food. But let’s keep things in perspective – gasoline is only a part of transportation, and even a doubling of gasoline prices won’t double the cost of transportation, and it certainly shouldn’t double the cost of the food.
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I wasn’t saying that gas prices alone made the price of food rise, but it is a contributing factor, as is the printing of money which devalues the dollar and causes the price of everything to rise.
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Let’s also not forget that shortly before President Bush left office, in the summer of 2008, gasoline was well above $4.00 per gallon. The only way anyone could legitimately claim that his policies, or those of the GOP, had anything to do with the precipitous decline in gas prices would be if they were to admit that those policies contributed to the global financial crisis.
TGY
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once the democrats took the senate in 2007 & nancy got the gavel, didn’t gas prices start changing then as well? I remember the news when they slowly drove that pipe to Phoenix, what a nightmare it must have been driving behind the darn thing. Thank You for explaining why our food cost is going thru the roof. If it’s died of old age, they FINALLY put it on sale.
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I have found a program recently that is hysterical, Duck Dynasty is like a new form of the Beverly Hillbillies and the uncle Si is a Vietnam Vet who is worth watching.
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to be truthfull i think gas prices are apsaloutly sky hight i think that really need to go down soon nobody will drive look at how cheep gas was years and years ago we dont get paid 100000000000000 dollars a week this is crazy.
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