Back in May, I noted that gas prices had climbed by 60 cents a gallon in the previous several weeks and predicted that they would keep climbing; I thought there was a good chance they’d be threatening the $4 per gallon mark again by Labor Day. Instead, they’ve dropped slightly over that time (down below $2.40 a gallon here this morning); the weakness of the economy has stifled the rise that I thought I saw coming, at least for now. (For the long term, I still see people projecting a significant rise in oil prices, and the administration policies that would tend to drive that are still in place.)
I’m glad I was wrong about that. I’m glad because higher gas prices would have taken money out of our pocket as a family; I’m glad because part of the picture in all this is that the energy-tax bill hasn’t passed the Senate; and I’m glad because I think the country’s better off than it would have been had I been right.