Can You Rate a President Based on Gas Prices?

I was thinking about this the other day. I started driving in 1980 and wanted to find gas prices back then. I remember paying about a buck a gallon when I started driving. The cheapest gas I can ever remember buying was about 88 cents a gallon. Since I don’t have data going back to 1980, I will use the data I have. It is provided by the EIA (Energy Information Agency).

When Clinton took office in Jan 1993, the average price of gas nationwide that week was $1.061. When he started his second term, gas prices had jumped to $1.241, or about 4.25% annually. When he left office, and Bush took over, the gas prices at Bush’s inauguration were $1.474. That means the price increased about 4.69% annually. So far, it could be said that Clinton kept the price of oil pretty consistent.

Bush took over in Jan 2001. When he started his second term, the price of gas had risen to 1.819. The price of gas was rising at just under 6% a year. I know that I haven’t accounted for the period in there where gas hit $4.00 a gallon for a little bit, but from inauguration to inauguration, it stayed consistent. When Bush finished his second term (and Obama took over), the average price for a gallon of gas was $1.847. In other words, during his last four years in office, Bush kept the price of gas from increasing at less than one percent per year!

Obama has taken gas prices from $1.84 on his inauguration day to $3.791 in just over two years. This is an increase of greater than 52% per year. Where is this going to keep going? When is enough going to be enough? And did you notice that the media is predicting gas prices of $5 by Memorial Day? I think that’s just to get us used to the idea, because that seems outrageous to me.

Tell me, can you rate a president based on gas prices? If you can, Obama is receiving a failing grade.