But Wait There's More! ! !

Okay all these good things happened in 1979 but nobody noticed because the economy went into the tank with inflation and high unemployment. Won’t doubling energy prices hurt the economy again? Well, no. In fact it will help the economy.

In 1979 energy prices doubled. But where did the money go. It went to record oil company profits and Arab sheiks (sound familiar). America’s energy bill went from $70 billion in 1978 to $280 billion in 1980. All the money left the non-oil economy. Things cost more due to higher energy prices (inflation) but there was less money and demand for goods and services because there was less money around (high unemployment).

With a tax and a rebate the money stays in the economy so that people can continue to buy energy but in fact will invest in energy saving behavior and products to cut their energy bill.

But there’s more! As demand drops so does the price of energy. Consumers save twice. They save by using less energy and they save because the pretax price of energy declines as well.

Currently Americans consume 7 billion barrels of oil a year. If their consumption of oil dropped to 6 billion barrels (1 billion x $60/barrel) and the price of oil dropped by as little as $15 barrel ($15 x 6 billion) Americans would save an additional $150 billion per year.









That is an additional $500














for every man, woman, and child in America.








That's on top of the tax rebate.
And OPEC and the oil companies will be picking up the tab.