Ordinary working people are being robbed at the gas pump! Gas prices are up 75 cents from last year with the national average around $3, and some predicting $4 a gallon by next fall. While oil companies earned over $100 billion in profits last year, working families are paying as much as twenty percent of their income just to fill their gas tanks!
Just in time for the 2006 elections, both Republicans and Democrats have spoken out against gas price gouging. However, any action taken by the House or Senate will be a mere slap on the wrist, especially compared to the $2.7 billion in tax breaks given to the oil industry last year.
Oil company executives say that price gouging isn’t happening when it’s obvious that it is. Corporations have said that if we try to cap gas prices they will just stop selling us the oil we depend on to heat our homes, cook, and get to work.
As our gas prices soar, so do the salaries of the industrys top bosses. Exxon-Mobil’s recently retired Chief Executive, Lee Raymond, walked away with over $350 million in salary and retirement benefits.
The gas price gouging is on top of the increases in everything else we have to pay for like rent, food, heating oil and health insurance. Health insurance now costs twice as much as it did just five years ago for workers. According to a new Harris Poll, 44% of drivers are being forced to cut back on their overall spending due to gas prices, with 25% cutting back on basic necessities such as groceries (Wall Street Journal, 5/25/06).
Big Oil clearly has us over a barrel. We can’t afford to keep paying more and more to fill our tanks.