Gas Rises, Driving Drops

So sayeth CNN by way of Democracy for Utah:

At a time when gas prices are at an all-time high, Americans have curtailed their driving at a historic rate. Americans are not driving as much as they did a year ago as gas prices skyrocket. The Department of Transportation said figures from March show the steepest decrease in driving ever recorded.

Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less — that’s 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT’s Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it “the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history.” Records have been kept since 1942. […]

Some Americans have turned to public transportation. Ridership increased by 2.1 percent in 2007, in part because of rising gas prices, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

Which reminds me: Why are we giving Bush’s big oil buddies $20 billion a year in free money when they’re making record profits from us?

Remember, in April of 2005, Bush said that there was no need to keep giving Big Oil any more of our tax dollars if oil prices stayed above $50 a barrel “Bush said, ‘With oil at more than $50 a barrel, by the way, energy companies do not need taxpayers’-funded incentives to explore for oil and gas.'”

Guess what? Oil now trades at nearly three times that amount.

Yet when the Democrats tried to cut the $20 billion a year that Big Oil gets from We the Taxpayers, and put it into developing alternative energy, Bush immediately threatened to veto the bill.

Go to Energy & Capital for more information from investing experts on how Bush hurt us all by putting his oil buddies ahead of the rest of us.