It's Time for the President To Be Honest About Gas Prices

With a long track record of support for handouts to special interests, corporate welfare that stacks the deck against small businesses and loopholes in the tax code that place an undue burden on the middle class, it should come as no surprise that career politicians like Barack Obama aren’t being honest with the American people when they talk about gas prices. 

Gas prices have doubled since the president took office. Washington should know by now that simply ignoring solutions to the problems we face does not make them go away—it just makes them worse.  

Instead of aggressively pursuing solutions that will ease your pain at the pump and help achieve American energy independence, President Obama and his allies in Congress are writing off the meteoric rise in gas prices as a product of tensions in the Middle East. Their logic is disingenuous, their rhetoric is dishonest, and the consequences of their inaction are having a devastating effect on the pocketbooks of Americans nationwide.

Middle East tensions have existed for decades, but gas hasn’t always cost $4 per gallon. That is because the rise in gas prices is not being dictated by dictators; instead, it is a byproduct of the federal government’s massive debt and deficits. Because the federal government is borrowing nearly 40 cents of every dollar it spends, the Federal Reserve is engaging in quantitative easing—i.e. money printing.

There are a variety of technical reasons for why the Fed is doing this, but simply put, there are not enough willing buyers of treasury debt at current interest rates, requiring the Federal Reserve to monetize our government’s debt.

The consequence of the Federal Reserve’s actions is the de-valuation of the American dollar against all basic necessities. Oil, sugar, corn, wheat, beans, gold, silver and tin are just a few of the commodities that have seen their value increase exponentially as a result of our nation’s reckless and short-sighted fiscal and monetary policies.

While I absolutely agree that we need to build the Keystone XL Pipeline, tap into our domestic oil supply and invest in new energy technologies, it won’t be enough. All of the oil in the world won’t cure the ills brought on by our federal government’s reckless spending and the Federal Reserve’s irresponsible actions. 

Sound fiscal and monetary policy is the key to economic relief. Sadly, far too many of our leaders in Washington either don’t understand this correlation or are unwilling to be honest with the American people. It is due time that those who we elect to be our voice have a level of economic competency and speak frankly while pursuing solutions that will solve our problems today instead of continually making politically expedient excuses and kicking the can down the road. 

If we truly commit ourselves to fiscal responsibility by reining in the Federal Reserve and ending the wild printing of money, we can ease our pain at the pump. 

For more information about my plan for American energy indepdence, please visit www.EricForSenate.com