Why gas prices matter

Has President Obama's pay-grade slipped again? He once wielded the power to stop oceans from rising, and, more recently, to revive an entire economy through targeted government spending. But now the most powerful man in the world has met his match. On gas prices, Obama is completely powerless. And he has just burnt a year's salary's worth of jet fuel on a domestic apology tour to make that point to voters. To be fair, Obama's newfound impotence is less a political show than his earlier superpowers were. Government really cannot do that much about gasoline prices, nor should conservatives want it to. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's promise of $2.50 gasoline insults the intelligence. As bad as our nation's (bipartisan) record of economic stimulus packages may be, our record with price-controls is worse. But that doesn't let Obama off the hook. At the very least, the federal government can stop making the problem incrementally worse, and stop trying to deceive the public over the fact that it is doing just that. This is the reason -- and really the only reason -- Americans are justified in their anger over Obama's performance on gas prices. As the nation's largest landowner, and as the master of coastal waters and interstate commerce, there is a lot of harm the federal government can do in the area of energy...more