Story of the Year: Gas Prices

December 29, 2006

Dec. 29, 2006: The Marietta Times—Cost of Gas the Top Story

Summary: "When Earl Wagner was a child, gasoline sold for 17 cents a gallon. In fact, Wagner’s father owned a gas station in Lowell.

‘I remember pumping gas for 17 cents,’ Wagner, 85, said. Fast forward 75 years to 2006.

It was a year of jolting sticker shock at the pump for the American driving public.

‘I drove just when necessary,’ Wagner said of the past year.

In August, consumers finally met $3 a gallon and it was like a dose of castor oil. It left a bad taste."

A bad taste for some can be good medicine for all. High gas prices had consumers taking a fresh look at fuel-efficient smaller cars, hybrids, and diesel. More people joined carpools and rode public transportation, taking traffic congestion down a notch in many areas.

Rather than breathe a sigh of relief that gas prices are down, we should urge the incoming Congress to do what’s right: bring the price of gas back up by adding a federal carbon tax.


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  • Shaun Shelley

    Are you nuts ? Another tax? Why doesn’t the government do something about the out of control profits of the oil companies? Because most of them are being paid by the lobbyists not to. Big oil and Wallstreet are raking in billions off the backs of the the working class and don’t do anything to help the environment. Why should we pay for their million dollar bonuses? :? We all can thank Ronald Regan for some of this mess because he stopped all the energy conservation programs that Jimmy Carter started.Regans main supporter was of course “Big Oil”

  • Mike S.

    If environmental degradation and high oil company profits bother you — and they bother me too — then high prices at the pump are what you want to see. The most effective way to ruin the oil business and drive people to cleaner alternatives is higher gasoline prices. Gasoline should be kept above $3/gallon permanently, by higher taxes if necessary, to allow alternatives (of which there are many) to gain ground. Yes, it is as simple as that.

  • D. Long

    Oh yeah – an artificial tax to keep gas at $3. Just great. Does that mean that Hawaiians will get a rebate? And with all that tax money coming in, where do you think it will go? And when the price of gas NATURALLY gets back to $3 and that tax isn’t bringing in the revenue, what do you think will happen with all those people who were RECEIVING those tax receipts? More taxes is not the answer.

    The carrot has always worked better than the stick. When you subsidize something, you get more of it. Applying this to alternative energy producers and keeping politics OUT of it (so that the ‘corn lobby’ doesn’t muscle out those who could produce ethanol form sawgrass or other sources) is key.

  • long

    gas these days is too much money! :x