The price gouging came on the heels of panic buying sparked by reports that damage from Hurricane Harvey has put 25% of U.S. oil refining capacity out of commission. Most industry experts indicate the actual supply disruption was a relatively small part of the problem.

Although the Dallas area has a mass transit system, most people rely on cars to get from place to place, due to a limited rail network and infrequent bus service.

Meanwhile, price gouging and panic buying is reportedly also underway in Austin, Texas.

As of Thursday evening, the Gas Buddy website indicates that only about 1000 Texas gas stations out of the more than 13,000 it tracks actually had fuel.

#DallasTX #gasPrices

Newark, NJ – The People's Organization for Progress held a protest at the busy Bergen Street and South Orange Avenue intersection, April 16. The call for the demo was “Gas Prices Are too Damn High!” It was a small rally but one of the noisiest ever. “If you think gas prices are too high,” said POP Chairman Lawrence Hamm over the bullhorn, “honk your horn!” Beep! Beep! Be-beep!

#NewarkNJ #US #PeoplesStruggles #Protest #gasPrices #economy #peoplesOrganizationForProgress

San Jose, CA – When the price of gasoline spiked above $3 per gallon, Republicans responded by proposing a $100 rebate. This was widely condemned as a public relations stunt at best and an insult at worst as working families are weighed down by high gas prices, rising interest rates and cuts in pensions and health care. But you don’t hear complaints about the Republicans coming from the rich.

Why should they? Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate have given them another tax cut, by extending the lower taxes on stock dividends and capital gains for another two years (2009 and 2010). This will mainly benefit those making more than $200,000 a year, the group that receives about half of all stock dividends and three-quarters of all capital gains. The average taxpayer, making $36,000 a year, will get their taxes cut by an average of $20 per year, and only one-fifth will see any tax cut at all. However wealthy taxpayer making $5 million a year will receive a tax cut of $84,000!

The Republican tax cut also limits the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) for another year. The AMT was originally passed after people found out that some wealthy individuals were not paying any federal income taxes at all because of all the loopholes favoring the rich. Because the AMT is not adjusted for inflation, more and more high-income, but not wealthy, families have been affected. Taxpayers earning $100,000 to $500,000 will get almost all the benefit from the AMT fix. However, rather than adjusting the AMT for inflation, Bush and the Republicans use the AMT issue as a way to cut taxes for the rich every year.

Even worse, this latest tax cut contains a sneaky provision that raises about $6 billion in tax revenue over the next five years, but then gives individuals earning more than $100,000 a year $100 billion in tax cuts over the following 35 years. This loophole will allow these high-income families to use Roth IRAs that protect their income from future taxes.

Not only are the Bush tax cuts grossly unfair, but they also raise the possibility of a financial crisis in the future. The growing federal budget deficits caused by the tax cuts and the occupation of Iraq have been mainly paid for by selling government bonds to foreigners, who now own almost half of all bonds held by the public. In fiscal year 2005, foreign investors and central banks bought bonds equal to 70% of the federal government’s budget deficit. When (not if) foreign investors and governments decide not to buy so many U.S. government bonds, this could lead to higher interest rates and a falling dollar, which could lead to higher inflation and unemployment at the same time. Such a crisis would hit working people who are living paycheck to paycheck the hardest. At the same time the government budget deficit would grow even larger due to lower tax payments, and this would be an excuse to try to cut the so-called safety net even more.

#SanJoseCA #Analysis #capitalistCrisis #gasPrices #taxCuts

For years oil companies have been growing ever larger through mergers and by buying up other companies, leaving the market for gasoline in the hands of a few giant corporations. Over the last 25 years, the number of refineries in the United States has fallen by more than half, from 324 in 1981 to only 148 today. Big oil corporations have not built a single new refinery since 1976, and have blocked the construction of new refineries. This squeeze on the supply of gasoline has raised prices and big oil’s profits. At today’s price of $65 a barrel, the cost of oil only makes up $1.60 of each gallon of gasoline, with the rest going to the oil companies. Their refining and marketing profit was four times as high in 2004 as the year before, and Exxon-Mobil alone made more than $40 billion in profit last year. This represents a rate of profit of 40% on their capital (refineries, oil wells, etc.)

In the 1970s the Federal Trade Commission began an investigation into the oil companies’ efforts to reduce the number of refineries. However, this investigation was dropped by the Reagan administration whose ‘free market’ policies meant freedom for big corporations to conspire to raise prices to fatten their own profits. Today, the Bush administration is using the high price of gasoline as an excuse so it can give more subsidies to oil companies (who already make billions in profits), weaken environmental standards and give away federal lands to be used for refineries, in an end-run around local community concerns.

As was the case with the hurricanes, the poor and oppressed nationality communities (Black, Chicano and Latino, Native, Asian and Pacific Islander) have been hardest hit by the rise in energy prices. The cuts in public transportation following the last recession in many localities have made working people even more dependent on their cars for transportation. Workers and the poor who have little in the way of spending on luxuries or savings have had to cut back on driving to work or for groceries, rely more on charity or borrow more just to make ends meet.

With winter coming, and with it higher heating bills (at of the end of September, natural gas bills are expected go up 60% while heating oil costs will rise ‘only’ 30% from last year), will the poor and oppressed nationalities be left in the cold just as they were left to rising flood waters of New Orleans? Being able to pay for heat is not just a household budget issue, but also a matter of life or death in too many cases.

Many have mentioned the need for states to ban utilities from cutting off people’s service this winter, and the need to fully fund federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEA), whose budget has not been set yet. But more needs to be done. The federal government, which is all too willing to cut the taxes of the wealthy, should instead cut taxes for lower-income households through a reduction in the payroll tax. This would put more money in their pockets, since many lower-income households pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. To offset the payroll tax cut, the government can eliminate the cap on Social Security and Medicare taxes – getting rid of the ‘cap’ would only affect people making over $90,000 per year. The LIHEA needs to be dramatically expanded beyond the $300 per family it paid last year, to make sure no household loses heat this winter. To finance an expansion in the LIHEA, a special profits tax on oil companies could be put in place.

#SanJoseCA #Analysis #gasPrices #oilCompanies