Republicans vs. Democrats on Gas Prices

Posted on June 11, 2008

This chart was put together by Republican whip Roy Blunt illustrating the vast differences between Republicans’ and Democrats’ ideas to lower gas prices.

Click image to view larger.

Blunt’s office adds this footnote:

Methodology: Retail gasoline prices are the result of literally hundreds of factors including crude oil supply, global demand, refinery capacity, regulation, taxes, weather, the value of the dollar, etc. Therefore it is impossible to say with certainty what one individual action will do to the overall price. However, based on what we know about the impact of crude oil supply and prices it is possible to develop some potential ranges of impact on gasoline prices for certain policy changes. For example, using the methodology employed by Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats that suspending shipments into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (between 40-77,000 barrels of oil a day) would reduce gas prices by at least 5 cents, bringing ANWR online (at least one million barrels of oil a day) could impact gasoline prices by between 70 cents and $1.60.

Also notice that neither party includes in their plan a reduction in federal taxes on a gallon of gasoline. Those “big oil” companies only make around $0.08 per gallon profit. And they provide a service too. The government takes twice the amount big oil gets, $0.16 per gallon, and government doesn’t provide anything for that two-fold amount. So, since “big government” doesn’t care about the American people, free enterprise will have to step in and do the job, again. At least the ideas proposed by Republicans enable the free market to work. In contrast to the Democrats plan, which include more big government and substantially less savings.

Bottom line: Republicans: Win - win. Democrats Win (government) - Lose (people).

» Filed Under Economy, Fiscal Responsibility, Government ethics/corruption, News, Politics As Usual, Socialism, Taxes, U.S. House, US Senate

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Comments

7 Responses to “Republicans vs. Democrats on Gas Prices”

Chad D on June 11th, 2008 2:02 pm

Wrong! The government doesn’t just get .16 pergallon, they al.so get ~30% of the .08 profit in income taxes.
Brian on June 11th, 2008 2:21 pm

It’s even worse for diesel. I believe the current rate is 24 cents per gallon for federal tax.
kimsch on June 11th, 2008 2:45 pm

The Republicans do cut the federal tax - at least for a gas tax holiday - it’s on the chart. Federal gas tax is 18¢, profit is 6¢ and, as Chad notes above, the oil companies pay taxes on that 6¢ as well.
Jimmie on June 11th, 2008 3:42 pm

Given what John McCain said today, you can put him on the left side of that chart. it’s going to be a tough row to hoe if Republicans have to battle their own nominee on this.
TR on June 11th, 2008 3:46 pm

Yes, the tax would be cut, but b/c it’s only for a few months, it doesn’t really count towards the government sacrificing as much as they are asking big oil to give up.

And yes, big oil might pay taxes on the 6%, but they pass that on the consumer. Which is what caused the big uproar over the Liberman-Warner bill that was shot down yesterday. That bill would have taken away the tax breaks of oil companies. But they would simply pass their loss on to the consumer, which is their duty to the stockholders, resulting in $10 - $15 per gallon.
Samuel Skinner on June 12th, 2008 2:00 pm

For those of you that don’t know the prices are overwhelmingly determined by foreign sources- domestic production peaked in 1970.

The reason it is so expensive? High demand and a weak dollar. Yep, borrowing 3 trillion dollars DOES have an effect on the economy.
Kevin Leech on June 12th, 2008 2:12 pm

If oil companies only get about .08 cents per gallon, why has there profit rose so much. Are we some how using three times more gas.