I don’t support subsidizing the suburbs when it isn’t economically feasible for them to exist on their own.

And yes, energy policies do affect price, but not nearly as much as good old supply and demand. Demand is skyrocketing globally; attempting to keep prices low in the face of that fact is swimming upstream.

I support government giving temporary help to people if it will help them to remain productive and self-sufficient in the long-run. I don’t support the government helping people to live places that aren’t economically feasible anymore. If the government can make the suburbs economically feasible without perpetual subsidies (i.e, if it funded R&D for the creation of a car that runs on solar power, etc.), then great. If we’re talking about going all protectionist on our oil supply, then no thanks.

As to government subsidies for the suburbs, I know of no state government who fully funds its highways out of gasoline taxes and other automobile related revenue. They almost all (if not all) draw some of their highway budget from general funds. That means that my state income taxes go toward funding roads that I rarely use to make it more affordable for people who make half-hour commutes to live in big houses in the suburbs.

It costs me the same to mail a letter from the city as it costs for folks in the country to mail the same letter. It costs the Post Office a lot more to mail their letter than mine, though. My price is artificially high so that theirs can be artificially low.

And for how long? Like I said, even if we doubled our production, we still wouldn’t increase global supply by 10%. So we aren’t going to dramatically impact the supply part of the supply/demand curve, and the demand part is continually rising thanks to the Asian boom, so where are prices going to go?

Unless you want the government to force domestic oil to be sold domestically and you think that other countries wouldn’t retaliate, setting off a lovely little trade war, then there is no way to keep domestically produced oil here.

It’s bad economics, bad foreign policy, and would more than likely end up with *higher* oil prices for Americans than if we let the market work its magic.

I’d simply prefer lessening that dependence via decreased consumption than via protectionism, which is exactly what forcing domestic drillers to sell their oil domestically is (pretty much by definition).

Great plan. Or you could look at current domestic reserves, the cost of extracting them, the potential increase to global supply, and come to the conclusion that we just don’t have enough oil to significantly bring down global oil prices.

If you’re ideologically committed to drilling more for the sake of drilling more, that’s fine. Just say so. It’s a lot more honest than pretending that there’s any evidence whatsoever that more drilling is going to make any noticeable difference in American gas prices or that there isn’t plenty of evidence that it won’t.

I just don’t see any evidence whatsoever that it will bring down gas prices. The numbers I do see tell me that we just don’t have enough oil to make an impact.

And, yes, drilling can be good for local economies. If you want to argue that drilling is good because it’s good for North Dakota, then that’s fine. Let’s not pretend that it’s having any real impact on gas prices for the rest of us, though. If you want to turn a few suburbs into oil towns, that’s fine, too. I don’t think that’s what most suburbanites want, though.

then you have a promising career as a literary critic ahead of you.

I don’t want to subsidize the suburbs by resorting to neo-protectionism, do you? I didn’t say that cities are better than suburbs. In fact, I said the opposite three different times in three different sentences just before the quotation you pulled. As I’ve said repeatedly, if you can afford to live in the suburbs, then have a ball. Just don’t expect people who choose to live in the city to foot part of your bill.

The key word in that second quotation is “today.” I never said that government policy can never have an effect on gas prices. All I said is that the present rise in oil prices is almost entirely due to increased global demand due to economic growth in Asia. If we started drilling in every conceivable spot the day Obama took office, the oil prices today wouldn’t be very different from what they are now.

And finally, people who live in rural areas who also work in rural areas are different than people who live in rural areas but work in the city. The former don’t have half-hour commutes like people who live in rural areas because they like big yards. If you don’t like paying high gas prices, then live near where you work, whether that’s the city or the country. If you don’t want to live near where you work, then don’t complain when gas prices continue to climb as the rest of the world industrializes.

Right now we consume over twice what we produce. So we’d need to double domestic production to continue using as much as we do now, which isn’t feasible even with the most aggressive drilling. Even if we could double domestic production, though, gas prices would still go up, since the oil in the Middle East is cheaper to get at than the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, especially the deepwater reserves.

Or we could consume less oil by either driving more fuel efficient cars, by ceasing to subsidize inefficient residential areas, or a combination of the two.

Personally, I’d be happy if highways had to be fully paid for out of gasoline taxes, rather than forcing people like me to subsidize suburban commuters. People who can afford to pay for the highways they use should be allowed to live as far from their jobs as they want. People who can’t should move, rather than expecting me to subsidize their half-acre yards.

If you want to increase domestic supply, then, yes, you’d bring global prices down. For example, if we doubled our domestic supply, then global supply would increase by just under 9%. A 9% increase in global supply, though, isn’t going to have a giant impact on gas prices. Additionally, doubling our domestic production is far more optimistic than I’ve seen anyone suggest is possible.

If you’re talking about not buying oil from OPEC and instead relying on our own reserves as your comment seemed to indicate, though, then you’re talking about some pretty fierce protectionism. That would indeed mean higher gas prices.

Finally, I’m not talking about more spending on highways. I’m talking about funding highways solely with gasoline taxes. The people who use highways should have to pay for them, not those of us who prefer to live near the places we work and shop. To fully fund the highways at their current rate, we’d have to add about another 50