Bush Lowered Gas Prices, Obama Is Raising Them

When gasoline prices rose under George W. Bush, the Democrats went crazy with accusations of how he and Vice President Dick Cheney were putting their allegiance to “big oil” over their allegiance to the American people. However, even amid their unfounded criticisms, Bush was able to bring gas prices down to approximately $1.84 a gallon simply by pushing for expanded drilling both on the continental U.S. and offshore. (For the record, the Democrats who were criticizing Bush for high gas prices also did their best to keep him from expanding drilling.)

Enter President Barack Obama. Under him, when gas prices began to rise, he laughed them off by telling one American to trade his SUV for a vehicle that got better mileage. And as the prices continued to rise, he made his often stated observation that green energy is the only long term solution for high energy prices. Then he rejected the Keystone Pipeline, which would have brought nearly a million barrels of Canadian crude to American refineries each day. Most recently, in a desperate attempt to get Americans to play along with his pin-the-high-gas-price-on-Exxon game, Obama has called for raising taxes on oil companies (as if increasing their cost of operations won’t increase the price we pay for the product they produce).

Oh, and I almost forgot, early on in this process he also told us to be sure our tires were aired up properly so we could get the best possible mileage out of our vehicles. And even before Obama was saying and doing these things, people he had selected to serve in his administration, like Senator Ken Salazar–now Obama’s Secretary of the Interior–said that even $10 a gallon gasoline wouldn’t convince him to allow expanded offshore drilling.

So why did gas prices fall under Bush, once they had spiked, whereas they are rising under Obama with no sign of abating?

That’s simple: Bush wanted to lower them, and Obama doesn’t. Bush knew that Americans needed oil at an affordable price in order to live the good lives they’d grown accustomed to living. Obama, on the other hand, thinks he knows best (as all true ideologues do). Therefore, he wants us to trade our reliance on fossil fuels for solar panels and wind farms, come hell, high water, or $10 a gallon gasoline.