Samantha Pierce

Why is it that the one solution to high gas prices that politicians are willing to put any effort into involves raising taxes? NY Assembly to consider tax on oil companies . The tax payer is supposed to be comforted by claims from politicians that the taxes they levy on oil companies won't be passed on to consumers. Right. It is pretty evident to me from perusing the various bills that I have to pay every month that big whatever does not pay the taxes that governments levy on them. Their customers do. It has always been this way. All of this talk about taxing oil companies is just more Posturing Over Oil Prices . Back in 2006 when I wrote the above post $3 a gallon was the highest we could conceive of paying for gas. Now that pretty much everybody in America is paying $4 a gallon at the pump for the "cheap" stuff we still have to put up with politicians stonewalling on things like increased drilling in currently off limit areas and increasing refinery capacity. Thanks a ...

Gas prices are going up and politicians are casting blame like people throw rice at weddings. Some silly folk are looking to the government to do something about the rising gas prices. The ugly truth is that, short of rationing or giving gasoline away for free, there's nothing the government can do to lower high gas prices now . Taxing the profits of oil companies (I presume that would be part of "get tough on big oil", note to self ask my good senator Charles Schumer how he intends to do that) will do nothing for us. As anyone who has spent about 5 minutes in a highschool economics class should be able to tell you, companies don't pay taxes. Their customers do. How do you suppose oil companies would recoup their losses if they were suddenly slapped with new taxes? Drilling in ANWR won't help either. It will be years before one drop of oil is squeezed out of the tundra. The same problem holds for building more refineries. By the time they're done (and by the t...