[WhiteGuy]

High gasoline taxes are a direct result of the Democrats no drill policies and the years of red tape it would take to build any new refinery capacity.

That’s on way to look at it. The government has certainly done nothing to ease the burden on Americans.

Just consider however why government (not just democrats) have done everything in their power to prevent any actual action that will reduce the price of fuel.

Big oil (for lack of a more effective term to describe the oil industry) lobbies hard with incredible amounts of power and money, and politicians do their bidding.

Why would an oil company wish to spend millions (billions?) to increase their refining capacity? This would effectively reduce their profits dramatically.

They are making record profits by NOT increasing capacity and by NOT tapping new oil fields.

It is also important to note that there are a number of peripheral industries that are benefiting from inflated oil prices.

[ClaireSolt]

The total profits of Exxon last year were $39b, and the Dems inserted almost that much in the defense supplemental for spinach and peanuts. Big oil is puny next to Big Brother.

[thackney]

Why would an oil company wish to spend millions (billions?) to increase their refining capacity?

Oil companies ARE spending Billions of dollars to increase their refining capacity. They are just not able to build new refineries so they are expanding and upgrading the existing ones.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117789455598286509.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

http://www.motivaenterprises.com/images/editor/ExpansionUpdatePressRelease.doc

http://www.panews.com/local/local_story_120184906.html

http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/122840.html

http://www.gulflive.com/news/mississippipress/index.ssf?/base/news/117645937628530.xml

http://www.turnto23.com/news/12468302/detail.html

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/business/19103.php

Still they get held up sometimes by the environmentalists and NIMBYs as well as the courts and legislatures that cave into them.