Three political goals - less pollution, less dependence of foreign oil, develop incentives for alternative fuels.

Today's Reality - gas prices are sharply up.

Probable Result - less miles driven, thus less pollution, less dependence on foreign oil and more of an incentive to develop alternative fuels. More citizens using mass transit.

Today's election year "reality" - claim to feel pinched citizen's pain, demand oil companies reduce price of fuel, promises of windfall taxes, flooding of the market with oil from the Strategic Petroleum reserve and suspending federal gas tax to lessen the price of gas.

Probable Result - enables more miles driven, thus more pollution, more dependence on foreign oil, less incentive to develop alternative fuels.

Market? What's a market?

Brilliant.
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First published at QandO.