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Armey accuses Democrats of 'triple-breasted schizophrenia' on gas prices

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey is criticizing Democrats for not fulfilling their promise to reduce gasoline prices once they took control of Congress.



Last spring Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-California) accused President Bush and House Republican leaders of "empty rhetoric" on skyrocketing gas prices. Now the tables are being turned. Dick Armey is lashing out at Democrats in Congress who will not approve greater exploration of gasoline from the country's own domestic resources -- in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

He says Speaker Pelosi and her fellow Democrats who recently passed a resolution against gasoline price gouging do not understand that prices at the pump go down when there are increases in supply or decreases in demand. The former Texas congressman contends there is little Congress can do to lower gas prices.

"Here's something that's going to blow Al Gore's mind and send him back to the textbooks -- the American gasoline industry at the retail level has historically been and still is today the first best example of a kinked oligopolistic demand curve," he contends. "The fact of the matter is, it is in itself more self-correcting by virtue of that than any government policy can be."

Armey says gas prices will continue to rise in the face of increasing world demand as long as Congress listens to "eco-evangelical henny pennies like Al Gore" who want to restrict energy use. And he confesses that Democrats "crack him up" when they pledge to reduce gasoline prices while telling people they need to diminish their consumption of gasoline.

"They got their political: 'Gee, I hope to get your vote by promising you lower prices.' Then they got their environmental: 'We gotta find a way to get people to consume less gasoline.' Then they got their egalitarian voice," he adds. "You talk about schizophrenic, this is triple-breasted schizophrenia here."

According to Armey, unless people in China and India stop heating their homes or driving their cars, increased prices of energy will continue in the absence of offsetting increases in the world's supply of energy.