Washington Reacts To Highest Gas Prices In History

like they will fine any company, the whole gov is made of big oil interests anyway.

Nah, the President doesn't have anything to do with gas prices and in fact when Carter was President we were paying more per gallon based on standards of living in 1978, but I don't blame him for it.

Now lets talk about England; they pay way more for gas than we do because of all the taxes on gas.

I dont think the town wants the village idiot back. Might cause oil problems again.

This will hurt the US economy even further with high gas prices. People will turn over to more hybrids than trucks or high performance car.

What defines price gouging?

This would only work if all the gas stations in a particular (let's add rural with any other gas stations far away) town jacked up their price to 6 dollars a gallon. That would be price gouging.

when gas was around 1.99/gal.in January to 3.50/gal.now +or- would be a good definition of gouging. very few comodoties have that big of a price run up in that short of a time .

Like it really going to hurt the oil tycoon who profit $10 billions a year. $3 million is not even going to make a dent in their pocket.

but in the world of business eg. donald trump even said penny pinching is never a bad thing. every cent adds up to a dollar and it builds from there. money is money. money is power.

I seem to remember when this Texas "oil man" (who owned two failed oil companies, both bailed out by Daddy's friends) ran for president, he said that he knew how to lower prices--after they'd topped $2/gallon for a month or two earlier that year. Because of credit card regulations, yesterday I couldn't fill up with the price of gas ($3.719 for premium) the pump cut off at $50.

I seem to remember that same man telling us that gas would be cheaper after invading Iraq. He's also told us the same is true if he could exploit reserves in ANWR. If he did that, it seems we might be paying $6/gallon, as reality has been the opposite of every claim of his so far.

Adjusted for inflation, gas prices have just passed the previous high in 1981. What's more interesting is that both of these spikes in gas prices have happened within a few years of passing huge corporate tax cuts (Carter's elimination of the oil windfall profits tax and Bush's multi-billion gas company giveaway). Will anyone believe me now that lower taxes don't necessarily lead to more money in your pocket or a healthier economy?

Yes it's about time (again) for Washington to make some noise on this issue They did it twice already at different times when prices became crazy and it brought it down for awhile until they discoverd that the hurricane season was another avenue for profits.

you US people should try to pay what the Europeans are paying, then you would buy smal economic cars. here in Denmark we pay around 2$ pr liter.

While I understand what you're saying, I'm tired of hearing it. Our country wasn't set up 500 years ago to be compact. The US and Canada were built so that individuals and families have more room than those in Denmark or Britain. While I wish we hadn't built the way we did, we did. I have a relatively short commute for Greater Detroit, 14 miles (22 km?), and there is no mass transit alterative. The suburb in which I work has opted out of the regional mass transit authority. We've made some ridiculous decisions and some drive cars consuming three times what they would had they made an intelligent, rational decision, but you need to understand that £1 or $2 for a litre is very different to you than $8/gallon is for us. If gas prices rapidly go that high for us, expect a global depression.

"Our country wasn't set up 500 years ago to be compact."

erm...I honestly can't think of an appropariate way to respond to that...

The question is: Can you appropriately respond to anything?