Yawn. I say drop oil to $40-50 a barrel. The oil industry can do some leaning to compete while the rest of the American economy can recover from excessively high prices of the past few years.
The oil industry has been leaned out over multiple boom/bust cycles. Cutting costs without cutting corners has been foremost--and the cost to drill has been coming down steadily as techniques are improved. But one thing about costing more to get a barrel of oil out of the ground than you get for it. You don't slow things down, you stop them. Let that shockwave roll through an economy which is relying on two job providers now: The oil and gas industry and Government, and see what's left.
Oil consumption is slowing. And oil production is growing. The industry likes to say there is some price per barrel that will cause the Saudi’s to stop pumping. But most countries outside of the US are hooked on the revenues. They can't stop pumping. They will likely pump more to make up the difference. Oil was at $30 a barrel in 2009. And it was under $20 a barrel in the 1990s. It does not cost $75 to pump a barrel of oil. That's oil industry propaganda.
I remember when oil was $10 a barrel. That's where we should go for a couple of years to get our economy truly energized. This $90+ a barrel is crapola for big oil.
Energy is the economy, a major part. Lower oil might give us another boom.