On March 12, 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney responded to President Barack Obama’s progress report on the Blueprint for Secure Energy Future. Rather than take the White House’s infographics on gas prices as gospel, I checked the data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s historical gas prices to verify Mitt Romney ‘s claim “with gas prices setting new records.” and posted the findings below:
That’s a fascinating graph. What led to the drop in prices in 2008?
Could it be the bailout?
Nathan’s comment on the graph is striking to me as well – if this latest price increase is to be blamed on Obama – or not, as you seem to be arguing. It would also be interesting to see what this graph looks like adjusted for inflation – are we simply at a point in time where oil markets are so tight that these spikes are highly likely? Or is that mostly an artifact of using an absolute price for gas? I’d love to see a version of this that talked a bit about past peaks, perhaps going back to the 1970s and the OPEC embargo…