Did the Washington Post commit a random act of, “Not in the tank for Obama”?  Scott Clement wrote, “Obama’s rising gas prices problem”.  The first response to this might be, “No expletive Sherlock”, but it does have a profound meaning.  Gasoline is used by the vast majority of people that drive to work, and those that drive to look for a job.  Besides the indirect influences on the prices of other goods, it is the direct cost that is realized immediately.  If there are people in the area in California where the price of gasoline hit $4.93 for regular unleaded aren’t feeling the pain, it would be a surprise.

                The topic of Energy could be written about in a book at least a few hundred pages in length, but it doesn’t need to be written.  The gasoline prices at the current average of $3.57 a gallon is bad enough, and to put this into perspective, Clement’s comments need to be taken a couple of steps forward.  President Obama has been touting his so called victory on the payroll tax cut, which has its major flaws without regards to energy, and he has even said that the rising gasoline prices are a result of the improving economy.  Was it good for the economy in 2008?  Was 99 cent per gallon gasoline in the 1990s good for the economy?  Only one can be answered with, “Yes”, honestly.  The second one.

            The next step is understand how much more gasoline costs now than it did in December of 2008, because this is relevant to President Obama’s performance as President, and it plays into the rejection of the XL Pipeline, another current event.  The average price for a gallon of gasoline was approximately $1.86 in December of 2008, and now it’s $3.57.  If a person uses just 15 gallons a week, the increase in the cost of living is $25.65 per week.  That translates to $1,333.80 per year.  Is it now a mystery why Florida’s and Nevada’s, two economies that rely heavily on tourism, are still struggling in terms of unemployment?  Gasoline prices are why.

            The second step is to understand the impact on the economy.  There are approximately 140,000,000 working right now.  $1,333.80 x 140,000,000 is:  $186,732,000,000 per year that is spent on gasoline that would otherwise be spent in other sectors of the economy.  What if the gas prices do hit $5.00 per gallon by summer?   It is hard to imagine it being good, but to play the hypothetical game, $5.00 per gallon over 3 months (13 weeks) will result in higher costs per week of $47.10,  or $612.30 on average per person over that three month period?  How many vacations will that cause to be cancelled?  Across the entire economy, $85,722,000,000 less money would be spent in other sectors of the economy.  How does that lead to jobs?   That’s only three months.  How does that help families become more prosperous? 

            This is not the only mistake President Obama has made, but the XL Pipeline issue, the moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico where 17 of the 18 US based rigs vacated during that moratorium for waters off the coasts of Asia, Central America, and South America, could be his biggest.  That is in light of the recent egregious violation of religious liberty.