Once upon a time, a few years back, the actual cost the gasoline and breakdown of taxes was clearly displayed next to each pump for all to see. Today you just see the final price to you-the-consumer. And that price soon approaching $4 to $5 gallon is a pretty tough experience every time you go for that fill up. Now if the old law requiring gasoline taxes to be displayed by the pump were still around today, you’d probably woulda realized that the biggest profiteer is NY state and it’s Tax Gouging policies. That’s right while the oil company makes a healthy profit of about 9 cents/gallon for all the hard work of researching to find oil, drilling it, transporting and refining a product you need, in NY (check your local state government taxes here:http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/1054.html), our government is Tax Gouging us over 63 cents a gallon plus an additional 8% sales tax. So the more gasoline prices go up, the more NY state rakes it in. And for the tax profiteering of 63 to 87 cents tax per gallon , the government does nothing and provides you with nothing except the sheer pride of knowing NY State has the highest gasoline taxes out of all 50 states in our Union! No wonder the taxes aren’t displayed at the pump anymore!
Perhaps, if we complained loud enough we could stop the tax gouging by pointing the finger at the NY State tax mafia instead of attacking the oil companies.
NY Taxes aren’t the only reason gasoline is going up. Nationally, ridiculous environmental regulations require refiners to make more gasoline blends than Baskin Robbins has flavors. So all blends of gasoline are always in tight supply adding to the cost.
Additionally, thanks to the environmental lobby, and a Congress full of demagogues, the United States has not built a new refinery since the 1970’s. Of course since then, the US population has grown by 75 million. Now these aging refineries are running at full capacity and even have to ship oil back out of the country to reimport it as gasoline. And once again, the additional costs are passed on to you and me. Meanwhile around the planet, we are all competing for the same world oil, as China has traded in it’s bicycles for cars and industry. This global demand has bid up oil prices to now over $110 barrel, cause the whole world wants oil. So China Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico and countless others are racing to drill the vast untapped oil resources right in our own backyard, in the Gulf of Mexico. But our own government won’t allow American companies to drill there. Up in Alaska, there is believed to be vast American oil resources in ANWR (Alaska’s National Wild Life Refuge). The oil companies only need to do their drilling on about 2,000 acres, which is about 1/20th the size of Disney’s Magic Kingdom (30,000 acres), in a wildlife reserve that is the size of the state of South Carolina. But Congress said we can’t drill there either, cause there is some Caribou that will be in danger if we deprive them of 2000 acres out of a reserve that is over 30,000 square miles large!
If we want to maintain our lifestyle and try to get away from being increasingly reliant on foreign oil, then The United States needs to allow our oil companies to aggressively resume drilling for domestic oil. Oil is plentiful, and our economy, as does the world’s economy, like it or not, depends on it. Oil is not a sin, it is a blessing. Most everything we have in our lives is made from it. From cell phones to saran wrap, milk bottles to MRI machines and even clothing, all are made from oil. And that won’t change anytime soon.
Although ethanol, solar, wind are in now in vogue, the reality is you can’t make plastic from a wind generator, and you can’t power nor even build passenger plane with solar power. These alternative energies will never solve the fundamental issue of satisfying our need for oil, and fantasizing that they are a panacea is a pure waste of focus, time and yes energy. We need more oil to maintain our standard of living, So we’d better start allowing oil companies to do what they do best. Drill for oil.
Meanwhile it wouldn’t hurt to aim our anger at the government for their Tax profiteering and demand that Congress stop interfering and allow the oil companies to get back to work!
Perhaps, if we complained loud enough we could stop the tax gouging by pointing the finger at the NY State tax mafia instead of attacking the oil companies.
NY Taxes aren’t the only reason gasoline is going up. Nationally, ridiculous environmental regulations require refiners to make more gasoline blends than Baskin Robbins has flavors. So all blends of gasoline are always in tight supply adding to the cost.
Additionally, thanks to the environmental lobby, and a Congress full of demagogues, the United States has not built a new refinery since the 1970’s. Of course since then, the US population has grown by 75 million. Now these aging refineries are running at full capacity and even have to ship oil back out of the country to reimport it as gasoline. And once again, the additional costs are passed on to you and me. Meanwhile around the planet, we are all competing for the same world oil, as China has traded in it’s bicycles for cars and industry. This global demand has bid up oil prices to now over $110 barrel, cause the whole world wants oil. So China Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico and countless others are racing to drill the vast untapped oil resources right in our own backyard, in the Gulf of Mexico. But our own government won’t allow American companies to drill there. Up in Alaska, there is believed to be vast American oil resources in ANWR (Alaska’s National Wild Life Refuge). The oil companies only need to do their drilling on about 2,000 acres, which is about 1/20th the size of Disney’s Magic Kingdom (30,000 acres), in a wildlife reserve that is the size of the state of South Carolina. But Congress said we can’t drill there either, cause there is some Caribou that will be in danger if we deprive them of 2000 acres out of a reserve that is over 30,000 square miles large!
If we want to maintain our lifestyle and try to get away from being increasingly reliant on foreign oil, then The United States needs to allow our oil companies to aggressively resume drilling for domestic oil. Oil is plentiful, and our economy, as does the world’s economy, like it or not, depends on it. Oil is not a sin, it is a blessing. Most everything we have in our lives is made from it. From cell phones to saran wrap, milk bottles to MRI machines and even clothing, all are made from oil. And that won’t change anytime soon.
Although ethanol, solar, wind are in now in vogue, the reality is you can’t make plastic from a wind generator, and you can’t power nor even build passenger plane with solar power. These alternative energies will never solve the fundamental issue of satisfying our need for oil, and fantasizing that they are a panacea is a pure waste of focus, time and yes energy. We need more oil to maintain our standard of living, So we’d better start allowing oil companies to do what they do best. Drill for oil.
Meanwhile it wouldn’t hurt to aim our anger at the government for their Tax profiteering and demand that Congress stop interfering and allow the oil companies to get back to work!
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