Here's what Obama is (I suspect) thinking on gas prices, but can't say out loud: At $4 a gallon, American finally started to have some financial incentive to do what it should have been doing long ago. SUVs and other horrifically wasteful vehicles are finally out of style, and people are interested in alternative fuels. I heard on Diane Rehm today a debate about whether plug-in-hybrid cars or all-electric cars would be the better way to go for most consumers. Even a year ago, that conversation would NEVER have happened. So, as much as it sucks to pay to fuel my dinosaur-burner, halle-fucking-luia that gas is finally expensive enough to trigger a widespread interest in something other than dinosaur-burners. Incidentally, $4/gal is still RIDICULOUSLY cheap compared to most of the world.
Also, you got to remember that those $4 were worth a whole lot more a year or two ago. Gas is a global commodity, with prices set globally. When our currency devalues, it takes more of it to buy the same amount of commodities like that. Gas hasn't gotten more expensive--we've gone broker.
Obama can't say all this because of the yahoos who only think in terms of the dollar signs on the gas pump. And yes, some of those yahoos have a real beef (the poor people who can't get to work because they can't afford gas, etc). Others are mainly whining about having to spend an extra $30 to gas up the Hummer. Either way, they're still thinking in a very late-20th-Century paradigm, and they still can vote. So Obama has to make some sort of gestures about lowering gas prices, although it's clear he is more interested in side-stepping the whole issue by having fewer and fewer Americans need to consume petrochemicals for their transportation.
I don't know anything about the DC gun ban. The OP is the first place I heard him state an opinion on it. Can you point us to his statements on it, blkalero?
|