A Chicken in Every Pot…

Former Governor Huey Long got himself elected to high office by making unsupported promises like "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Most people these days wouldn't swallow that kind of rhetoric any more. But according to what we see in the video below, if we send Michele Bachmann to the White House we will pay less than $2 for a gallon of gas once again.

Now first, I am having trouble with her statistic. On January 20^th, 2009, according to Bachmann, I paid $1.79 for a gallon of gas.  Actually, having checked, I paid less than that but then I live in Texas where the sales tax for gasoline is scandalously low, as is the pavement quality of our roads, something that gasoline tax is supposed to pay for maintenance.

The statistic I really wanted to look up was how much I paid for gasoline the summer of 2008, as we were heading into the finishing stretch of George W. Bush’s presidency, and I found that statistic in the same spreadsheet. I just had to scroll down a little more. On July 21, 2008 I paid $3.92 for a gallon of gas. That number dropped to under $2 after Barack Obama became president.

It’s back up now, largely due to the unrest and rioting in the Middle East. And obscene profits enjoyed by oil speculators.

So I guess my next question is precisely how Michele Bachmann proposes to come through on her pledge, one that her audience seemed to swallow hook, line, and sinker.

Will she privatize the oil industry? Oh, wait, they are already privatized. Will she send the Marines to the Middle East and reinstall all the dictatorships that have toppled or are toppling? Or maybe she’ll invade Venezuela and get rid of that Hugo Chavez. Then take over their oil production.

It has to be something like that. God knows she won’t want to put the oil speculators in prison. Bachmann calls these people "donors."