Gas Prices and the New Normal

Some good news, gas prices are going down some. The bad news is on average they're about 15 cents more than last year.

Gasoline prices begin summer slide

While analysts are not expecting a resulting surge in gasoline prices, they could rise quickly if the Mideast unrest does disrupt oil supplies. Gas could also climb if a hurricane threatens the heart of the refining industry along the Gulf Coast.
This year's early summer decline, while welcome, is smaller than the seasonal drops of the last two years, when gas prices also fell between Memorial Day and Independence Day. Gasoline is 15 cents more expensive than it was last year at this time.
Gas prices typically rise in late winter or early spring when refineries perform maintenance and switch from making winter gasoline blends to the more complex summer blends required for clean-air rules. When the nation's refineries aren't operating at full strength, supplies drop and prices rise. Once the maintenance is done, output rises and prices fall.
"When refineries go down it can create immediate and severe havoc," Kloza said. "It's a very shallow distribution system, quick to fill and quick to empty."~snip~

There's been a decline in the number of refineries but the ones still operational have been fitted to refine more. But when one goes down it really creates havoc.
On top of the fact that we depend on oil from a region of the world that is, to say the least, pretty unstable. Whatever happens there affects the price of oil here.

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That could be softened by the Keystone XL pipeline that the enviro-nazis are so up in arms about.....aided and abetted by Obama and various commie/democrats of course because whatever might be good for the middle class they're against.
Of course the government, local,state and federal has to have their cut.

Some U.S. drivers will be paying a little more because of higher gasoline taxes that went into effect July 1. California and Maryland taxes rose 3.5 cents per gallon, Connecticut's climbed 4 cents, and Wyoming's 10 cents. Virginia drivers are getting a break — gas taxes there are falling 6.4 cents.
Gasoline taxes account for the biggest difference in pump prices for U.S. drivers. Local, state and federal taxes vary from nearly 70 cents per gallon in New York, California and Hawaii to half that in Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia, according to the American Petroleum Institute, the industry's chief lobbying group.

Which would be alright if they actually used those taxes for road and highway improvement instead of putting into their general operating fund to spread the wealth around.
There's so many ways gas prices are manipulated to soak the middle class in this country that it's shameful, and we pay the price in higher fuel taxes and the cost of goods and services.
So when you're looking at the price at the pump and thinking you're getting a break paying 15 cents less this week than you were last week, remember how the government is getting richer and pandering to enviro-wackos for political gain and donations to their campaigns, while making you poorer and shortening the distance that a dollar will go just to get you to work and the grocery store.

We work for the government now, not the other way around.