Obama Was Wrong Then, and He’s Wrong Now

With the price of gasoline having declined from nearly $4.00 two years ago to an average of $2.20 nationwide today, most Americans are undoubtedly thrilled not to be paying unnecessarily high prices at the pump.

President Obama wants them to know that they shouldn't get used to it. His reasons are as predictable as they are incorrect.

“I would strongly advise American consumers to continue to think about how you save money at the pump," he said this week, "because it is good for the environment, it’s good for family pocketbooks and if you go back to old habits and suddenly gas is back at $3.50, you are going to not be real happy.”

Two years ago, when I suggested in my presidential campaign that we could achieve $2.50 a gallon gasoline with an aggressive American energy policy, President Obama said it was impossible. He called it one of those "phony, election year promises that never come about." The White House actually said I was "lying". Then the President went on a nationwide tour promoting exotic and far-off alternatives as the solution to $4.00 gasoline.

Two years later, those science experiments (algae power, for instance) are no closer to powering our cars. But thanks to the revolution in American oil and gas production (the vast majority on private lands the federal government doesn't directly control), in many states today Americans are filling up for less than $2.00 a gallon.

The President's response? We'd be better off spending the savings on new fuel efficient cars or appliances than to save it.

He tells Americans that prices will climb back toward the highs of 2012, even though they're estimated to remain low for the foreseeable future. He tells us that prices will surge because "demand for oil by China and India and all these emerging countries is going to stay flat," even though prices are low in part because demand from China and India has been much less than anticipated.

President Obama was wrong about gas prices two years ago, and he's wrong today. But wouldn't it be nice to have a president who was more concerned with figuring out how to keep gasoline affordable than in explaining why what he told us was impossible is still impossible, even though it's already happened?

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