It may make economic sense, but if you think anyone is going to allow gas stations to charge, say, $15 a gallon to people during a natural disaster, you’re crazy. The mindset of most people is to be charitable to people who are suffering in a natural disaster, donating food, clothing, shelter, etc. And the government supplying disaster relief is probably considered even by most conservatives to be a valid role for them to play, just like enforcing the laws and having a military.
Bottom line is the gas shortage must be related to a localized supply problem, since supplies are abundant in states right next door like Pennsylvania. The government should have a plan to get gas to the stations or citizens. Even if prices were allowed to be hiked, there would still be people unable to get gas, because they couldn’t afford it.
If the market price rises to $15 per gallon, then let it. That will send a signal into the market place to producers to divert gas into that region (even if it’s a higher expense and trouble to do so). Putting price controls in effect has the exact opposite effect and means that there will worsen the supply problem.
More on this from the ever-bright economist Walter E. Williams (who sometimes fills in for Rush Limbaugh) http://rossputin.com/blog/index.php/economics_of_prices_by_walter_e_williams
“The government should have a plan to get gas to the stations or citizens. Even if prices were allowed to be hiked, there would still be people unable to get gas, because they couldn’t afford it.”
Get government out of the way. The free market can handle it. As conservatives, we need to have more faith in the market than that.
I have not yet found that provision in my copy of the Constitution, nor the BOR.
I do believe that we are a CHARITABLE nation, and the proper response should be from the Church! JMHO...
Donate to the Salvation Army. They will have food and water long before the Gum't gets there, and not just donuts and coffee!
Donate to the BEST responders...
DOING THEIR MOST...
The problem here in New Jersey is that we're in this bizarre "Twilight Zone" -- partly an ongoing disaster (especially for people who have no power and are facing the first cold spell of the season next week), part disaster recovery, and yet fully functional in other respects. So we have at least half the population going about their lives as if there is nothing wrong, which means their consumption patterns for things like food and fuel are back to where they were before the storm. Yet the supply chains that provide some of these things aren't likely to be back to normal for days -- if not longer.
Ironically, I live within a 1/2-mile walk of two grocery stores, three convenience stores, and about two dozen restaurants. Every one of them is up and running, and doing great business. Trucks have been making their normal deliveries to these places for days.
Having said that, I think it’s also worth noting that with limits on the prices gas station owners can charge, there’s also the possibility that many of them simply aren’t going to make any heroic efforts to get their businesses open while things are still in a state of flux here.
Many gas stations are owned my middle easterners and some care less about gouging Americans.
Let gas prices go to $15 per gallon and you would have private tankers lined up at the NJ border to get in and sell it immediately.
Want to solve the problem? Allow human nature to work freely.
Government planning is a joke. The history of the Soviet Union in the 20th Century should have proved that conclusively for everyone, but some seem to have missed the lesson.