I've been curious on gas prices. We know they are outrageouss. We know the oil companies are price gauging but I was curious on how they rate blue states vs red states.
http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/sbsavg.asp
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/
So let's compare (this is average price per gallon)
Texas (Red State) $3.08
California (Blue State) $3.44
Florida (Red State) $3.13
New York (Blue State) $3.21
Ohio (Blue State) $3.22
Kentucky (Red State) $3.18
Those are just a few. But I find that quite interesting how it seems red states are paying less then blue states.
6 comments:
Has it occurred to you that blue states, in general, tend to have much higher state taxes on gasoline? Californians pay about $.60 per gallon in state taxes, by far the highest in the nation. Remember this whenever there is an election and some feel good educational bond issue comes up. You know, the ones where most Californians vote "Yes" on. Guess where much of that money is coming from? These costs are also in your phone, water, and electric bills.
Texas has more refineries than any other state. Of course their gas is cheaper. I wonder how many refineries there are in New Hampshire.
What are you trying to say anyways? What possible good would it be for oil companies to punish blue states? If these oil companies really are in cohoots with Republicans, wouldn't it make sense to pander to the blue states?
California, like Texas doesn't have to import oil. States like Arizona do and they pay less. I'm sorry something is odd here. Need I remind you as well how gas prices mysteriously dropped right before the election and skyrocketed afterwards? Nevermind we are also paying less per gallon of oil then a year ago when prices were close to this. Keep those in mind too.
I noticed you overlooked my statement about state taxes. While it's not the only factor, it is a significant one.
Let me use the examples you gave:
State______Tax per gallon
----------------------------------
Texas____________$.38
California_________$.60
Florida____________$.50
New York__________$.63
Ohio______________$.46
Kentucky__________$.37
Now, let's remove the state tax from the price of gasoline and let's see what we get:
State_____Adjusted Price
--------------------------------
Texas____________$2.70
California_________$2.84
Florida____________$2.63
New York__________$2.58
Ohio______________$2.76
Kentucky__________$2.81
Lo and behold! Two of the three examples you gave show the blue state paying less-per gallon than the red state. Isn't it interesting that New York, among your examples, pays the least per gallon when you remove the state taxes? Note also that the disparity between the states is much less after making the adjustment.
Oh, and Arizona pays $2.74 after the adjustment, which puts them much closer to California's price.
http://www.thepriceoffuel.com/images/Tax_Chart.gif
I realize this is probably a dead thread now. I just want to clear up a few problems with what I said.
First of all, in my first post, I say "Californians pay about $.60 per gallon in state taxes, by far the highest in the nation." This is incorrect as the chart I link to below shows California ranked 3'rd highest in state taxes.
Secondly, the chart itself was updated shortly after I derived numbers from it. This accounts for the minor descrepencies between the numbers I posted and what the updated chart shows. However, the numbers still show the point I was making.
I meant chart I linked to above.
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