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Who Likes High Gas
Prices?
Not everyone is crying all the way to
the pump.
“… I thought we were
all supposed to be worried about global warming, for Pete's sake.
That's caused, I'm told, by American drivers burning carbon fuels.
So I thought all correct thinkers now wanted high gas prices. I'm
confused.”
– George Will, ABC’s “This Week,” April 30
By Amy Menefee
Business & Media Institute
May 10, 2006
Most Americans agree that high gas prices
are bad, as the added expense hurts the wallets of everyday commuters and
the budgets of businesses. But there are those who believe higher prices are
good for us – or just good for their agendas.
Most politicians want to be seen working to bring down their
constituents’ gas bills, but some have argued – and voted – for
higher taxes. Liberal activists openly enjoy President Bush’s low
poll numbers as gas prices rise, while they lobby for a “greener”
society. And the media have been complicit in the agenda-pushing,
offering their own opinions and plenty of air time for those on the
left. The
Business & Media Institute (formerly the
Free Market Project) revealed some of these high-price
advocates, often using their own words.
The Media
The media have served as a mouthpiece for the anti-SUV
movement, giving favorable coverage to hybrid vehicles and sometimes
offering their own opinions about what could be done to encourage
decreased driving. Although the Society of Professional Journalists’
Code of Ethics states they should “deny favored treatment to
advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to
influence news coverage,” the anti-driving, global warming left has
found some sympathizers.
CNN’s Jack Cafferty: “I hope gas prices go as
high as they have to go to get the rest of these morons off the road
in these big Hummers,” CNN’s Jack Cafferty exploded on the March 25
“In the Money.”
Fox News Channel’s Geraldo Rivera: “About the
only good news is that [high prices] may cut down on global warming
but exploding gas prices are hurting lots of people along the way,”
Rivera said on the April 24 edition of “Geraldo At Large.” He went
on to advocate for the “windfall profits” tax: “Senate Judiciary
committee chairman Arlen Specter says Congress should consider
taxing the windfall profits being reaped by the oil companies, which
I think is a no-brainer. These guys aren't entrepreneurs, they are
pirates. Incidentally if you're interested in finding the cheapest
prices in your neighborhood, check out the Web. There’s a million
sites. And think about trading in that SUV.”
CNN’s Miles O’Brien: Reacting to a
report showing purchases of gasoline-inefficient vehicles are as
popular as ever with consumers, the “American Morning” co-host
suggested there “could be a good argument for a gas tax in all of
this to help pay for these alternative fuels.” “We have enough gas
taxes, don’t you think,” reporter Carol Costello fired back on the
April 25 program. O’Brien: “Well, maybe we could have more.”
The Washington Post: In a
May 5 editorial, the Post declared: “Mr. Bush needs to focus
less on how the government spends its small research budget and more
on how companies spend their enormous ones. That means changing
company incentives by making oil less profitable.” The Post went
further than this advocacy of market meddling, advocating “a
sliding-scale tax that would kick in when oil prices fell below a
certain level.” If prices started to fall on their own, the tax
would make sure they stayed high. The editorial played the global
warming card as well, saying guaranteed higher prices would be
better for the climate.
Thomas Friedman: The New York Times
columnist said on April 28 that, in order to decrease dependence on
foreign oil, “we need a tax on gasoline at the pump that will keep
prices around $4 a gallon (still roughly $1 less than most Europeans
pay), or we need a tax on vehicles that will make gas guzzlers
prohibitively costly and hybrids and smaller cars enormously
attractive.”
President and Would-Be Presidents
Democrats in Congress may be talking about lowering gas
prices, but the last Democratic president and two presidential
candidates all supported higher gas taxes.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.): The Boston Globe
reported on March 1, 1994, that Kerry was miffed that his support
for more gas taxes had not been noted. After he was overlooked in
the Concord Coalition’s recognition of deficit-cutting lawmakers,
“Kerry said the coalition's method did not accurately reflect
individual lawmakers’ efforts to cut the deficit. ‘It doesn't
reflect my $43 billion package of cuts or my support for a 50-cent
increase in the gas tax,’ Kerry said.”
Bill Clinton and Al Gore: As The New York Times
reported on June 26, 2000, “In 1993, Mr. Gore cast the tie-breaking
vote in the Senate for the administration’s economic stimulus plan,
which was intended to reduce the budget deficit by cutting spending
and raising some taxes, including taxes on gasoline. Some
Republicans in Congress are now calling for suspending all or part
of that federal gasoline tax.”
Liberal Activists
Environmental organizations and other global warming
alarmists want to see Americans weaned off oil for good. It’s not
surprising that they advocate high prices to stem the tide of fossil
fuels. And anyone who criticizes President Bush has had a field day
with the latest polls, as the media have attributed plummeting
support to soaring prices at the pump.
Sierra Club: Carl Pope, executive director of
the environmentalist Sierra Club, penned a column titled
“We're better off without cheap gas.”
“Every civilization has its blind spots – ideas so profoundly
embedded in the culture that they are rarely even debated, but so
fundamentally flawed that they can steer a whole society onto the
rocks,” Pope wrote. “… Our own folly is cheap fuel.”
Bush’s critics: It would be unthinkable if any
audience member had missed the media’s constant repetition of
President Bush’s falling poll numbers. That’s a boon to his critics,
and gas prices are at the top of the list of culprits. ABC’s
Elizabeth Vargas was noting the trend back on January 31, the night
of the State of the Union address. Like many reports to follow,
Vargas gave credit to gas prices for driving down Bush’s approval
rating:
“After what is by most accounts the most difficult year of his
presidency, many would say undoubtedly the worst, the president has
seen his approval ratings sag, in part due to high gas prices and an
inept response to Hurricane Katrina, and the indictment of a high
ranking White House official and, of course, growing dissatisfaction
with the war in Iraq … Getting back to the president’s approval
ratings, Charlie, this has been a tough year for him. The latest ABC
poll shows his approval rating now at 42 percent, which is the worst
for a president entering his sixth year in office since Watergate
hammered Richard Nixon.”
Charles Gibson rejoined: “Yes, and
other polls actually have him lower than 42 percent.” As gas prices
have continued their rise, Bush’s support has fallen into the low
30+ percentile.
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