the problem with high fuel costs is that it hurts the public in a very real way that they can see in their daily lives. and yet there is no good short-term solution to the problem. the long term solutions are all about getting our economy less dependent on oil and supporting the use of fuel efficiency and alternative energy sources. but the long term isn't what people are thinking about when people have to cut back on the food they buy so they can afford the gas to get to work to earn the money they need to survive.
there's no way for a politician to tell the hard truth: that that there are no good short-term solutions and that all the possibilities that might be proposed are likely to make things worse, cause some other problem, or be completely ineffective. instead, we have to suck it up and move as fast as we can towards long term solution. during the suck-it-up period a lot of people are going to suffer, and the neediest among us are going to suffer the most.
talking like that is political suicide. so instead, i expect that politicians in both parties will pander and promise things to address the problem that can't possibly work. brace yourself for a lot of bullshit solutions to a very real problem. the best we can hope for is that the bullshit solutions will be merely ineffective and that the bullshit will be coupled with a long term (i.e. real) plan.
