What we're saying is, look, there's an easy way to pay for it: the oil companies. They've got record cash flows, record profits. Impose a new tax on them, use the revenues to dedicate to these programs.
The fact that oil companies are enjoying record profits when consumers are paying record high prices does not sit well with people.
Those are not investments that Exxon Mobil and the other oil companies are ever going to make.
Oil companies are exploiting a tight supply-demand situation. They are piling on, making a bad situation worse.
This is pure window-dressing, so the administration can get some new stories out there without offering any solutions that will offend (the Republican party's) biggest contributor -- the oil industry.
...Almost playing a poker game with crude oil prices, making a series of bets about where prices are going to be going. That speculation is really what is driving prices up.