The Facts That End The Gas Price Debate

By : Matt Winkeljohn – http://www.resistthetyranny.com

Gas prices are double what they were when Bush left office.

There has been a seemingly endless debate as to what the difference in gas prices were from back in 2008 until now.

It it always the same debate, no matter where you look.  People who back Republicans say that gas prices are double what they were in 2008 and for those who blindly follow any Democrat in office, they says that prices are the same.  Well, the fact is, their both correct.

Let’s look at the real unbiased statistics.

The chart shown is from GasBuddy.com.  GasBuddy is a company located in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, which operates websites and mobile appsthat report fuel prices to the public through crowdsourcing and relationships with stations and credit card companies.

As you can see, the chart (above) is a graph that depicts the monthly average gas prices from March, 2003 to March, 2014.  The yellow shaded area signifies the time frame that George W. Bush was president and the pink area signifies the Obama years to date.

If we first look at the last four years of the Bush administration (signified by the first red dot), it began with gas prices sitting at about $1.70 per gallon and ended (signified by the second red dot) back down around $1.75 per gallon.

When the Republicans and their supporters say “gas is double what it was when Bush left office,” this graph proves that to be a correct statement.  However, for about three years of Bush’s second term, the gas prices hovered between $2.50 and $3.25 per gallon, not much lower than it is now.

Now let’s look at the beginning of Obama’s second term (signified by the third red dot) and the prices to date (signified by the fourth red dot).

Many Obama supporters, including Barack Obama himself, like to blame George Bush because “Obama inherited such a mess,” yet Obama “inherited” gas prices of $1.75 and by the beginning of his second term, it was about $3.60 per gallon.  To add to this, for the first half of Obama’s second term, the gas prices have averaged about $3.50 per gallon.  This is about $1.00 to $1.25 per gallon higher than the average of the same time in Bush’s second term.

While it is indisputable that the gas prices during all of Bush’s years spent the majority of the time under $3.00 per gallon and the for the majority of Obama’s time, the gas prices have been over $3.00 per gallon, does this mean it is all Obama’s fault that the current gas prices are much higher than they were during Bush’s years?

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