|
As I write
this, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is around
$2.90. The price for diesel is $2.87 and experts all seem
to think the price will be above $3.00 a gallon all summer long.
Why do I worry about that? Can't we all just take shorter
vacations this year?
I worry because
at this point, the price of gasoline is not just about family car
trips to see the Grand Canyon...it's about survival. I've
talked to a lot of people in recent weeks. Gas prices are
the #1 topic on their minds. One woman told my wife that if
gas gets much higher, she would no longer be able to afford to drive
to her minimum wage job in Ashe County. That's a story you'll
hear repeated all over Watauga County - jobs here don't pay that
much, and now it's getting too expensive to even get to them.
And then I worry
about my neighbor, driving his old John Deere down the road.
How is he supposed to keep farming, and helping the other folks
on my road hay their fields, if he can't afford the diesel to run
his tractor? I can leave my tractor parked and let my land
get overgrown, but he depends on his tractor to support his family.
When President
Bush finally discussed the out-of-control price of gasoline recently
[AP, 4/24/06], all he said was that Americans are in for a "tough
summer" and that he couldn't do a thing to help...nothing to
help working families in North Carolina...nothing to hold the Big
Oil companies accountable for record-breaking profits. He
doesn't sound worried, but I am.
Oh, I know one
of our local Republican politicians is blaming the increased cost
of gas on the state gas tax. That tax increased 2-cents
per gallon, but the price of gasoline has gone up 25-cents
per gallon in the last two weeks alone, and over a dollar since
President Bush took office...somehow, I don't think his argument
holds water. I think he's trying to distract our attention
from the fact that the leaders in his party aren't
worried about how corporate greed hurts regular citizens. But
Watauga County folks know there's an oil man in the Oval
Office, and an oil man in the Vice President's office, and it's
their Big Oil buddies who are raking in the cash this summer, while
working people can't afford transportation to get to work.
Lee Raymond
loves the high price of gasoline. He just retired as the CEO
of Exxon and received almost $400-million in a retirement package.
How can any one person spend $400-million? And who do you
think is paying for that retirement? Here's a hint: It's not
Social Security......it's your wallet, every time you pump gas.
Exxon's profit has soared from $5-billion in 1992 to $36-billion
in 2005. The simple fact is, we're being gouged by Big Oil,
even as Exxon is still refusing to pay the money the courts awarded
to fishermen and other people in Alaska who lost their
livelihood during the Exxon Valdez oil spill seventeen years ago.
Lee Raymond isn't worried about Alaskan fishermen, and he's not
worried about the rest of us - he can afford plenty of gas.
This administration,
and its lackeys in Congress (including our own Virginia Foxx, who
voted against helping people who couldn't pay their home heating
bills last winter) has encouraged Americans to be more oil dependent,
not less. It has talked about new sustainable energy sources, while
cutting back funding to the programs that will develop those
sources. Bush & Co. are allowing Big Oil to make
excessive profits, without seeing to it that any of that money gets
plowed into research that will wean us off oil and onto sustainable
alternative fuels...and thus new industries that would create good
jobs here at home. Meanwhile, the people of Watauga County
are worrying about which bill they can afford to pay this week.
No one should
have to worry about choosing between a tank of gas and a bag of
groceries.
Larry Turnbow
is a member of the Watauga County Democratic Party. He spent
over 20 years working in the environmental field, and knows how
new technologies can create jobs. Growing up, he spent summers
working on his grandparents' cotton farm in North Georgia.
|
