Gas Prices
Oil and gasoline are the main source of energy that runs our everyday lives. The biggest component in our oil consumption is gasoline for transportation. Millions and millions of Americans rely on gasoline to commute to and from their jobs. During the past few years, high gas prices have been quickly becoming one of the most talked about concerns in the United States. With prices currently reaching around $4.50 per gallon, many Americans are being forced to reevaluate their financial situations and cut back spending in other areas of their daily lives. What is the best way to help the increasingly burdensome gasoline situation in the United States? Most Americans would say that the government should step in and help relieve the gas prices. This however, would only provide temporary support. The key is to lower the amount of gasoline consumed in the United States. In order to achieve this goal, the government needs to raise gasoline prices by raising gasoline taxes. This would provide numerous benefits for the United States as well.
According to an article entitled “Lets Raise the Gas Taxes and Lower Income Taxes” by Lester Brown, the president of the Earth Policy Institute, the world consumed approximately 31 billion barrels of oil while only discovering less than 8 million new barrels of oil each year. We are quickly depleting the Earth of its oil reserves (Brown). The United States is at the forefront in terms of this massive amount of oil consumption. The Energy Information Administration published the 2007 energy statistics which shows that the United States used approximately 20,680,000 barrels of oil per day which is nearly 25% of the world’s consumption. With the majority of our gasoline being provided through imports from other countries around the world, we are currently becoming more and more dependent on foreign oil. With the laws of supply and demand, this allows other countries to take advantage of the United States and impose higher oil...
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