Republican Double Standard on Gas Prices
05/02/2008
The Democratic-led House is committed to bringing real relief to hardworking Americans struggling with high gas prices. But President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress have fought repeated efforts to reduce the burden of rising gas prices and make our nation less dependent on foreign oil.
Now, as Republicans play politics over the price at the pump, Democrats are wondering: Where is the GOP outrage over the high cost our military is paying in Iraq?
As Congress gears up to debate the Bush administration's latest request for an additional $108 billion in war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, Iraqis are fuming at suggestions being floated by lawmakers that Baghdad should start paying a share of the war's costs by providing cheap fuel to the U.S. military.
“America has hardly even begun to repay its debt to Iraq,” said Abdul Basit, the head of Iraq's Supreme Board of Audit, an independent body that oversees Iraqi government spending. “This is an immoral request because we didn't ask them to come to Iraq, and before they came in 2003 we didn't have all these needs.”[Chicago Tribune, 5/1/08]
- Average price per gallon of fuel paid by U.S. military units in Iraq: $3.23 [AP, 4/2/08]
- Price per gallon of gasoline for Iraqi residents: $1.36 [AP, 4/2/08]
- Cost of fuel U.S. military consumes in Iraq per month: $153 million [AP, 4/2/08]
- Oil revenues Iraqi government expected to take in this year: $70 billion [WSJ, 4/24/08]
- Gallons of jet fuel, gasoline and diesel used by U.S. in Iraq through Sept. 2007: 5.95 billion [Military Times, 3/2008]
- Cost per barrel of light sweet crude: $112.52 – up 252 percent since January 2001 [Energy Information Administration]