Setting a price floor on gasoline

Charles Krauthammer revisits his plan to set a price floor on gasoline - wanting to use it as a sort of magic wand to change American behavior and fight global warming.

Mr. Krauthammer is full of self-righteousness, but his plan wouldn't helped cut greenhouse gases anyway - it would have increased them.

If government had artificially inflated the price of gasoline, oil suppliers somewhere in the chain would have raised the price to meet the floor, negating the tax. It would have cut demand in the US, but the higher prices would have signaled investors to increase supply. We would have ended up with surpluses of oil. That surplus would have been sold in the international market, driving down the price world-wide, increasing consumption world-wide.

Sure, the US would have produced less CO2, but production by the rest of the world would have increased more than US production decreased. The government wouldn't have collected any taxes. It so easy for elitists to think they can wave a magic wand and change the laws of economics. All they can do is pervert the laws to detriment of everybody.

Quit trying to use the power of government to change our behavior, Mr. Krauthammer. This bogus idea is pure socialism.