An increase in gas prices from $1.78 a gallon--when Bush left office-- to $3.80/gal--todays price--is equivalent to a flat tax of 4.6% on a family making $23,000. That means that that poor family, based on typical gas usage by lower income families, will have to use nearly 5% of every dollar they make in a year to cover the increase in the cost of gas under President Obama.
The poor simply can't afford that sort of cost increase without having to sacrifice necessities. Because wealthier families spend a much smaller proportion of their money on gasoline they can absorb the higher prices with less impact.
Clearly the impact of the increase in the price of gas is highly regressive-it disproportionately impacts the poor.
Keep in mind that these poor families pay effectively nothing in Federal income taxes and may even get paid by the government through the Earned Income Credit. Yet the massive increase in the price of gas under Obama is imposing a huge "tax" increase on these most vulnerable Americans.
Liberals declare that Obama's efforts to prevent drilling in America-while sending $2,000,000,000 to Brazil to help them drill for oil-has no impact on gas prices. However back in 2008 then Senator Obama joined other Democrats in declaring then President Bush responsible for the price of gas.
But it's clear that Obama wants high gas prices. His energy Secretary, Dr Chu, openly declared that he wanted US gas prices to be similar to the $8/gal Europeans pay. He's since said that he's changed his mind but nothing in the Administrations energy policies reflect that.
Obama himself said, back in 2008, that high gas prices are good because they help wean Americans off of fossil fuels but that he would have liked prices to go up at a lower rate. But the key point is he wanted gas prices to increase. Like Chu Obama says that he no longer feels that way but like Chu nothing Obama has done indicates any change in his position.
Because Obama and his Secretary of Energy have both said they wanted higher gas prices to help save the world from global warming and because their energy policies are designed to drive up the price of gasoline it's hardly unreasonable to hold them at least partially accountable for the horrendous impact of rising gas prices on the poor.
You can read more of tom's rants at http://obvioustalk.blogspot.com/
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