President Bush is at it again, this time using rising gasoline prices for political gain. The “facts” he presents in his latest ad are incorrect, but suppose for a moment you believe that John Kerry voted 10 years ago to increase gasoline taxes by 50 cents per gallon. Bush says the average family would spend an additional $657 per year for gasoline. Let’s take a closer look at the numbers.

The additional $657 means the average family is purchasing 1,314 gallons of gasoline a year.

If you use the current average price of $1.77 for unleaded gasoline then the “average” family currently spends $2,326 per year for gasoline.

Adding the 50 cents per gallon increases the total for a year to $2,983, quite a bit higher, but read on.

What really counts in this argument is the cost per mile driven or the total annual cost of owning a vehicle.

Bush fails to mention that consumer habits would certainly have changed over the past 10 years if gasoline prices had increased drastically.

We would have more fuel-efficient vehicles, and they would be driving fewer miles, both good things for our environment and our country.

The average fuel-efficiency would need to rise from 20.3 to 26 mpg to offset the 50-cent increase per gallon, certainly something automakers could do if prompted by consumers or the government.

If our government had a backbone we could reduce the amount of oil our country uses.

Maybe we wouldn’t need to be afraid to open the newspaper in the morning and read of more people being killed in parts of the world where our nation is despised.

We should be leading the world in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, not parading around in our huge vehicles and thumbing our noses at the rest of the world by doing things like pulling out of the Kyoto Global Warming Agreement.

Ted Peterson

Alumnus

Ames