Gas Prices And Presidential Polls

This story on Newsweek.com discusses the Saudis and Pres. Bush pointing fingers at each other about why the gas prices are so high.

The White House says:

the problem is one of supply and demand: faced with rapidly growing economies in Asia, they say, suppliers cannot keep pace in the United States, not least because drilling is not allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Meanwhile the Saudis say that not only is there plenty of supply but the problem for U.S. gas prices is domestically caused:

The Saudis blame the high gas prices in the United States on bottlenecks inside the country, especially the complex state-by-state regulations of gasoline blends and a lack of new refineries.

I think both are right. I mean, more supply would help us out...hence the need to drill in ANWR, allow off-shore drilling and encourage (not force) alternative fuel source development to become economically feasible.

Additionally the problem needs to be addressed (and the Democrats in the Senate have been blocking the solutions for decades. We need to build more refineries in addition to the above mentioned solutions. The other thing is the states should be encouraged to lower the gas taxes (the feds should remove their gas taxes).

So, while there is a lot of gleeful reporting in the MSM about Bush's numbers being down I attribute the drop in numbers to the rising gas prices. Interestingly it is the Democrats who have caused the rising price (via constant gas taxes, prohibition on building refineries, blocking drilling for more supply, etc) and Bush is getting the heat.