They Can’t Outrun the Law Forever

Conn Carroll / June 11, 2008

Writing in the Modesto Bee, Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA) reports: “Listening to constituents this Memorial Day, the issue most on their minds was the price of gasoline.”

Judging from the Senate’s desperate effort to “do something” about gas prices this week, we’re guessing most congressmen heard the exact same things from their constituents. Liberals in the Senate trotted out the same grab bag of meaningless measures for their energy bill this week: windfall profits taxes on oil companies, increased taxes for domestic oil producers, and lawsuits against OPEC. The Los Angeles Times editorial board (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) called the Democratic plan “silly”and added “Trying to find an economist who thinks a windfall-profits tax is a good idea is like searching for a climatologist who thinks global warming is caused by trees.”

For decades now liberals in Congress and the White House have been restricting domestic U.S. energy production and have escaped paying the political consequences of the requisite high energy prices. But you can’t outrun the law law of supply and demand forever. USA Today editorialized today: (more…)