Newt Gingrich is a Communist - or a Bold Faced Liar.

First, let me say that while people pay attention to gas prices, they really don't matter.

No one really cares about the price of gas - as long as the price of everything else stays low.  Gasoline is not our major expense.  If gas goes up a lot and I pay an extra $10 a week for gasoline, isn't that big a deal.  It's only  $500 a year, and honestly most people get better raises. 

What matters is the total cost of living increase.  Also known as inflation.     If everything I pay for goes up by 10% in one year, then I need a 10% raise just to keep up.  That's a real problem.  If gas goes up by 10% and nothing else does, it's not as big a a deal.

Gasoline is not even 1% of the total CPI.(Source: see page 26)  Specifically, as per the USA CPI importance for gasoline is only 5.273 out of a thousand.  That is, just a bit more than one half of one percent of the Consumer Price Index comes from gasoline.  Raise that to 5.463 thousandths if you include all vehicle fuel (diesel, flex fuels, etc.).

The price of gas is just not that important.


That said, it is a single price, that you often see every single day, as compared to the total price of all the food you eat.   Almost everyone buys it, and even those that don't generally see it sold in big letters at gas stations.  In effect, it is a shortcut for inflation used by ignorant people that don't look at the CPI.  It is a really bad estimate of inflation, but people use it anyway.

Now, a lot of us are busy, so I don't blame people for not knowing the CPI.

I do however blame Newt Gingrich, the commie SOB, and the rest of the GOP for pretending the price of gas is important.

Why do I think Newt is a communist?   Because he promised to deliver $2.50 gasoline.  Setting the price of products, particularly commodities like oil or wheat, is practically the definition of communism. They call it "centralized planning".  Half the reason Russia fell was they set the price of food so low farmers couldn't survive and left the business.  They had long lines at grocery stores.  Do we want that kind of stupidity here?

It is possible for a president to set the price of gasoline in his own country. Make no mistake about it.   President Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela has done it for quite some time (Article about Venezula Gas price).  How does Venezuela do it?  By nationalizing the industry (Wikipedia source on Venezuela nationlizing) and giving massive public subsidies to keep the price low.  As in 90% subsidies.

And frankly, that is the ONLY way Newt Ginginch can live up to his guarantee of gasoline at $2.50 a gallon.   By nationalizing the industry and then spending government money to keep the price low.

Because, even with unlimited, unregulated oil exploration, tax breaks, oil pipelines, etc. gasoline can not be guaranteed to go above $2.50.   Because most of the world's oil sources are not in the USA.  The President of the USA can not control Canadian shale production, Venezulan production, Saudi production, Iranian production, Kuwait Production, etc. etc.

We are not in charge of the world gas price and haven't been in decades.  The only way for the President of the USA to keep the US gas price under control is to give massive government subsidies, just like that commie Hugo Chavez does.

So, Newt Gingrich is a communist.   Or a liar that can't live up to the ridiculous, lying promises he makes.   I know he isn't stupid, he strikes me as a very smart man, so he can't simply be too stupid to know what he said.