The fight for higher gas prices

Why do your required business when you can cause higher gas prices instead?

Nancy Pelosi made her mark on history by being the first Speaker of the House in 50 years to fail to pass even one appropriations bill before sending her troops home for another vacation Friday.

Why did she choose ignominy? To cause higher gas prices, of course! More supply lowers the price; that's what they are fighting. See Law of Supply and Demand.

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Hell -- otherwise known as Congress -- has officially frozen over. For the first time since the 1950s, Members will skip town today for the August recess without either chamber having passed a single appropriations bill. Then again, Democrats appear ready to sacrifice their whole agenda, even spending, rather than allow new domestic energy production.

Or even a mere debate about energy. The Democratic leadership is stonewalling any measure that might possibly relax the Congressional ban on offshore drilling. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid know that they would lose if a vote ever came to the floor, and they're desperate to suppress an insurrection among those Democrats who are pragmatic about one of the top economic issues. Behind this whatever-it-takes obstructionism is an ideological commitment to high energy prices. The rulers of the Democratic Party want prices to keep rising.

And Senator Maria Cantwell has her favorite higher-gasoline-price initiative included. The attack on speculators - not housing speculators, only energy:

A good gauge of the radicalism of their energy blockade is the lowest common denominator of this energy fight: The effort to blame "speculators" for $4 gas was promoted by both Barack Obama and John McCain, as well as nearly everybody else in Washington. Sure enough, the House voted 276-151 on Wednesday for a bill that would have driven oil futures trading overseas.

But the legislation actually failed to become law -- by design. It needed a two-thirds majority because Speaker Pelosi suspended the rules to prevent Republicans from offering amendments, drilling among them.

Cross posted at Sound Politics.