It's gas prices, stupid

While Congress has passed a massive, deficit-busting housing bail-out bill for the 6% of home mortgages that are in default (That's right, 94% of home mortgages are current), the public has turned their attention away from the mortgage crisis and the war in Iraq, to seeth each time they pay $4 a gallon to fill their car tank with gas.

Congress thinks they've bought themselves political cover for re-election this fall, with the housing bill and reauthorization of spending for the war in Iraq, but have done nothing about gas prices. President Bush showed what will work, when he lifted the executive order on offshore drilling.

Just the prospect of greater supplies has driven oil prices down some $27 a barrel in two weeks. This isn't reflectd yet in retail gas prices, although they're down a few cents a gallon, below $4 slightly, in most places.

Even greater oil price drops would come quickly, if Congress passed legislation allowing offshore drilling, arctic drilling and ANWR drilling. Just let the Arab shieks get wind of the U.S. buying one to two-thirds less oil from them, and then watch prices drop. We probably wouldn't even have to go through with any actual drilling.

But no, the environmentalists and Big Government do-gooders have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in their back pockets, and they wouldn't allow any such bills to come to a vote in Congress. They know too many Democrats recognize the public's ire over gas prices, and they'd join enough Republicans to open up drilling.

I believe the voters will make them pay for their short-sightedness this fall. Gas prices trump the mortgage crisis and Iraq in voter's minds, and Reid and Pelosi are missing the boat.