Foreign Policy, Monetary Policy, and Gas Prices
by Rep. Ron Paul

The burning issue in Washington today is high gas prices, and it won’t go away anytime soon. Americans are not happy about paying $3 per gallon at the pump, and they want something done about it.
But price controls won’t work, and allegations of price gouging and “windfall profits” amount to nothing more than congressional grandstanding. No government official or politician is fit to define a “fair” price for gas or a “fair” profit for oil companies. This is not the Soviet Union. The last thing we need is centralized government planning when it comes to our precious energy supplies.
The price of oil, like everything else, depends on supply and demand. What we really need to focus on is how government keeps the supply of refined gasoline too low. This is not as easy as demanding price controls, and does not fit into 30-second sound bites. But as with so many issues, we must peel away decades of government interference to really understand the problem. (more…)







