If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

Hmmm, the economy is recovering relatively well.

A year ago--and before then--it was a complete disaster - it was alleged that Obama was intentionally destroying it.  Private-sector jobs were being added at an "anemic" rate, and indeed the numbers seemed tenuous and fragile.

When those numbers started looking better and better, the talking points changed.  Obama was mysteriously no longer intentionally trying to ruin the economy... but the recovery was just "not fast enough" and would have been much faster if the GOP had had its way. That talking point has an expiration date, too, since most of the metrics are looking pretty good, and appear to be accelerating.  We've heard the BS about the "actual" unemployment rate, we've heard the BS about Obama's alleged promise that the unemployment would never be above such-and-such a level, we've heard the BS attacks on the BLS charts, and all the rest.

Since the economy is no longer a viable talking point, the GOP is looking for any other possible things to kvetch about.  How about gas prices?  They are once again going up alarmingly fast, just as they did a few years ago.  Fueled by speculation and global uncertainty, they are topping $4.00 per gallon in much of the country now.  I find it interesting that the GOP folks are focusing on Obama being at fault, when a fair bit of the price of a gallon of gas is actually the result of taxes, not oil prices.  In many areas, as much as 20-25% of what we pay at the pump goes to localities, counties, cities, states, and the feds to fund transportation and other projects.  Am I the only one that doesn't see the irony in the GOP's lack of anti-tax rhetoric here?

For a party that used to spend most of its time talking about lowering taxes across the board, it seems a bit strange that they would spend 100% of their time complaining that there isn't enough drilling going on, when oil prices aren't the only driver of gas prices: something politicians actually CAN change (as opposed to the world oil market) is the taxation per gallon.

Keeping in mind that in we can really only influence one of them, why don't Republicans try to tackle both sides of the equation?