John Podhoretz:
IN the category of dumbest poll question ever, you'll be delighted to know we have a winner. It's ABC News, which has taken the coveted prize because it actually paid polling firm cash dollars to ask 1,002 Americans whether they were "dissatisfied with the price of gas."Guess what? Ninety-four percent said they were! Americans are actually upset that a gallon of gas now costs nearly three times what it cost three years ago. Be still, my heart! What a shocker!
But many of them are not merely "upset." The pollsters say that 44 percent of Americans are actually angry about paying an average of $2.50 per gallon.
Silly me. I figured they'd be happy about it, but I guess ABC has set me straight. This is idiot empiricism at its finest. Maybe this weekend, ABC will ask Americans if they eat food, or if the ground gets wet when it rains.
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First, what's astonishing about the gas-price increase is that it seems to be happening in a vacuum. In the 1970s, when gas prices skyrocketed, so did everything else. The inflationary spiral of the Nixon-Ford-Carter years was astoundingly widespread and affected almost everything thing Americans needed to buy just to get by — from paper products to breakfast cereal to milk and sugar and flour.
But today's inflationary gas spiral seems to be isolated — so far. It can't remain like this in perpetuity, as industries will have to start passing along their increased costs to consumers. Nonetheless, a strong economy with a healthy employment rate goes a long way to easing the pain of the American gasoline consumer.
The other problem is that Democrats have a bit of trouble making hay out of rising gas prices because so many of them — or at least so many of the intellectuals who form the party's thinking base — actually believe in high gas prices. They think gas prices have historically been far too low. (Remember last year that John Kerry had to dodge and weave frantically because he'd once supported a 50-cent hike in the gas tax?)
Granted, Democrats and liberals would prefer to raise prices through taxation to enrich government, and then use that money for mythical and magical new systems that could replace the internal-combustion engine.
But still, they are in a bit of a bind when it comes to making a federal case about expensive gas.
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