Mike O'Brien

The most relevant is clearly the price of crude oil. There are two solutions - adjust the supply of oil and adjust the demand for it. Both are dubious. The supply of oil has reecently been augmented by the introduction of ethanol. Not only has this had no apparent effect on the price of gasoline, ethonal is less fuel-efficient and produces more carbon dioxide. In short, besides government subsidies and prefferential tax treatment it offers no noticable advantage, though a complete ethanol system may obviate the need for middle-eastern oil. Further, it has resulted in sharply higher food prices. Other supply-side solutions include drilling off the coasts and drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

John McCain was once an ardent opponent of ethanol, but then he changed his mind in time for the Iowa Caucus this year. He has consistently opposed drilling in ANWR. The only solution he has proposed is a gas tax holiday for the summer, which, as Barack Obama noted, "would only give you about $30."

Barack Obama shares John McCain's view that more oil would not solve the problem. Additionally he thinks that American's need to change their lifestyles to use less gasoline in order to lower their costs (you use less, you pay less). Further both candidates believe that the problem is large oil companies fixing prices. As noted above, if he decided by fiat that oil companies could not make profits and that they had to lower their prices accordingly, the average consumer would save less than half what they would from the gas tax holiday. He has managed to counter a bad idea with one that is iconoclastically worse.

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