Payback
I noticed that within forty-eight hours of the polls closing, gasoline prices shot up ten cents per gallon. That meteoric rise has been tempered though. Prices have only risen an additional penny since.
Back in August, I was pleased to note the decline in gas prices. Although I thought it was temporary until the Labor Day weekend. The Friday of Labor Day weekend, I noticed that gas prices actually fell. I mentioned it to my girlfriend and she said, “Well, of course! They’re gonna keep going down ‘til the election.�
I had to give her credit. With all my cynicism, I hadn’t suspected that. But then, my girlfriend is pretty clever.
That same day, I tuned in to Rush Limbaugh. He mentioned the falling gas prices and said to watch out for those people who’ll tell you that prices are falling so you’ll vote Republican in November. Watch out for what? The truth?
In the weeks before the election, I had a friend tell me he was going to vote a straight Republican ticket because he liked the cheaper gas. He was also voting no on 87 for the same reason. I wonder how many others did the same.
You can’t really blame someone for voting their pocketbook, principles are nice to have, but they won’t keep the tank filled. I suppose that’s the main reason proposition 87 failed. Who wants to pay more for anything? Personally, I was willing to pay less than three-and-a-half cents per gallon on the chance that we could get away from oil eventually. Alas, the majority wasn’t.
But what good did it do them? Did the oil companies show any gratitude to the people of California? Did they have any thanks for the voters in our district who voted overwhelmingly Republican? Wholesale oil prices have fallen since the election, why haven't gasoline prices? Apparently, they’re so upset with their loss of power in Congress, they’ve forgotten their anti-tax, Republican friends here in the North State.
It’s hard not to laugh at the irony. All those people trying to save fifty cents on a tank of gas, and instead of saving, they’re paying three times that much!
What’s that old joke from the sixties? “I didn’t want a war, so I voted for Johnson—and I got a war.�