High energy prices are in large measure because of our failure to introduce a comprehensive plan to shift our strategic vulernability on foriegn sources of energy.
The latest energy bill only scratched the surface of this issue.
Perhaps a wholesale tax structure could be introduced to stabilize prices over the long run, to address the short term inflexibility in demand that our sources and producers exploit to wring high prices from consumers.
But temporaritly lowering our domestic consumption only ultimately lengthens the time that we will remain dependent. A retail gas tax seems like a expensive, costly band-aide on a deeper problem.
Wiseghy -- you're right that _temporarily_ lowering our domestic consumption will only lengthen our dependency. We need to _permanently_ lower our domestic consumption to the point where we can supply our energy needs ourself or by trading with countries that don't want to kill us.
I love how all the free-market analysis out there on these right-wing sites never takes into account what Adam Smith clearly documented in the Wealth of Nations as an exception to the endorsement of unfettered free trade.
Basically put, you shouldn't trade with people who want to kill you.
Why should we stand idly by while SUV-driving 'patriots' go to the pump and send their dollars overseas to the middle east where fanatics are trained that America is the great Satan and that to martyr themselves in the course of jihad will land them in eternal paraside?
I believe in free markets, but funding both sides of the war on terror is insane, and Bush has done nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Sure, let's drill more in Alaska -- that'll give us enough gas for a few months. But we've got to get serious about technologies that will allow us to maintain our current standard of living while consuming less fuel and giving less money to the terrorists.