Gas Pains??

[Mr VJP]

The national average for gas is approaching $4 per  gallon, once again causing pain at the pump. According to the U.S.  Energy Department, the average yearly cost for an American family to  fill up the car with gas will rise 28 percent from last year, or about  $700. A family can't lose that much money without also losing the  ability to buy other goods or services. The price of gasoline has  skyrocketed by 67 percent since Barack Obama took office, but, needless  to say, he isn't letting this crisis go to waste.

The fact is that Obama's energy policy is working  exactly the way it was designed to work. His intent is to drive up the  price of fossil fuels in order to make alternative energy sources seem  more appealing. Alternative sources have been heavily subsidized for  years and yet still can't rival fossil fuels, so, Obama reasons, prices  on the latter must be driven higher.

In 2008, now-Energy Secretary Steven Chu said,  "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the  levels in Europe." Obama began work on that less than one month after  taking office in 2009 by reversing George W. Bush's expansion of  offshore oil drilling. When the BP Deepwater Horizon spill occurred in  April 2010, the administration took this as a golden opportunity to  enact a moratorium on offshore drilling. Despite multiple court rulings  against that moratorium and even being ruled in contempt, however, the  administration persists with its policy.