Gasoline prices are at an all time high in the USA. Here is what Nancy Pelosi said during the 2006 election.

"With skyrocketing gas prices, it is clear that the American people can no longer afford the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress and its failure to stand up to Republican big oil and gas company cronies. Americans this week are paying $2.91 a gallon on average for regular gasoline – 33 cents higher than last month, and double the price than when President Bush first came to office.

“With record gas prices, record CEO pay packages, and record oil company profits, Speaker Hastert and the Majority Congress continue to give the American people empty rhetoric rather than join Democrats who are working to lower gas prices now.

“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”

I wonder why the Democrats didn't implement their commonsense plan. Or did they, and it didn't work. The alternative fuel thing hasn't worked out. The alcohol initiative has pushed up the price of food even as the price of gasoline continued to go up, a double whammy on the American people. Then there is that price gouging thing. It is working so well for Exxon Mobil that they are abandoning the retail gasoline business. The price of the stock went up on the news. Maybe price gouging wasn't paying off.

Exxon Mobil sells about 5 million barrels of oil per day. They produce about 2 millkion barrels per day, and buy the rest from countries that don't like America at the market price. So they basically don't make a profit on 60% of the oil they sell. Barack Obama, the economic genius, says he wants to put an excess profits tax on the price of oil above $80 per barrel. That would effectively prevent Exxon Mobil from selling the 3 million barrels of oil per day that they buy from other countries since they would lose money on each barrel sold. (And other oil companies are in a similar situation.) THe USA uses 18 to 20 million barrels of oil per day, and about 13 million barrels come from other countries, bought at the market price. Obama's plan would result in the US having perhaps 7 million barrels of oil per day. It is hard to predict how much gasoline would cost under this program. And, of course, the economy would grind to a halt. Obama's plan sounds like something Hugo Chevez would try.