I question the premise that the President should do anything about oil or gas prices. I believe the President and our government should act in a manner that is consistent with free and fair market principles and let prices respond to market forces.
Currently the rise in oil prices has very little to do with the natural forces of supply and demand. Some can easily argue that there is an increased risk premium in the price of oil due to unrest in the ME - I doubt that risk premium has increased $50 - $60 dollars in the past 12 months.
I do believe that there has been a trend over the past few years of abnormal commodity inflation (oil, metals, crops) due to economic policies, i.e quantitative easing and national debt. If we address these issues we would see a drop in commodity prices.
The quantitative easing, aka -QE1 and QE2, being done by the Fed in my view the wrong approach to trying to stimulate the economy. and unfortunately the way in which inflation is measured, no one is seeing the statistical impact on inflation. However, people are beginning to feel the pain every day at the pump and at the grocery store - and it is going to get worse. I suggest people become more aware of what the Fed is doing and encourage it to stop.
Quantitative easing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ron Paul often uses the term fiat money and is the only person seriously talking about the issue.
Fiat money - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I don't suggest going back on a gold standard, but our government has to have some kind of standard, even if it is as simple as a debt limit or restricting the size of government to a certain percent of GDP. The last thing we want is hyper-inflation.