Gas Hikes Cost Econmy 20 Billion

While oil companies enjoy record profits, the average driver has already forked over an additional $146.00 per car this year.

"Spending billions more on gasoline constrains consumers' budgets, leaving less money available for other purchases," GAO's Thomas McCool said in written testimony to a House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing on the cause of record prices.

Like many other energy experts, McCool said the GAO has found that current high pump costs are the result of a large amount of oil refining capacity being offline, strong gasoline demand and lower fuel inventories.

With record profits, why isn't money being spent to modernize refineries and allow greater capacity. The reason is simple. They are screwing us plain and simple. With less capacity and greater demand comes higher prices and higher profits. It is time to enact a windfall profits tax that would be used to reimburse taxpayers for this horribly corrupt practice.