Slate Magazine published a new piece outlining some of the reasons Americans should feel lucky paying “only” $4.00 for a gallon of gas. Robert Bryce argues the relative “cheapness” of today’s gas in terms of historic prices:

The simple truth is that Americans are going to have to get used to more expensive gasoline. And while they may continue grumbling at the pump, they need to accept the fact that even at $3.50 or $4 per gallon, the fuel they are buying is still a bargain.

This is wrong on a number of levels. Let’s start with the obvious that it’s completely disingenuous to compare fuel costs in 1922 to fuel costs today.

First of all, who was actually driving back in 1922? According to a historical study of vehicle ownership, only 22.7% of Americans owned cars in 1939 (17 years later), compared to 77.6% in 2005. Econ 101 will tell you that when nobody is driving and demand for gas is low, prices will be high for a non-readily available commodity. Until people are driving themselves around, there is no incentive to innovate, mass produce, and therefore cheapen the cost of gas.

Secondly, Slate forgets that driving in Europe is not the same as driving in the United States. Paul Krugman makes this point clearly in his most recent op-ed in which he reminds readers that sure, it may cost more to put petrol in your car on the other side of the pond, but in Europe, drivers have other options — namely city-wide public transportation systems and the option of walking to work, the grocery store, or the pharmacy:

[I]n the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas [...] Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard [...] Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.

Slate makes one last point that goes beyond wrong and borders on offensive:

Gasoline is also cheap compared with other essential fuels. A Starbucks venti latte costs the equivalent of $23 per gallon, while Budweiser beer runs $11 per gallon.

Sorry, but Americans aren’t consuming gallons of coffee and beer every morning as they drive to work, school or the doctor. We spend a great deal more of our discretionary budget on gas than on any other commodity. Just another example of Slate’s backwards apples to oranges logic.

Our guest blogger is Joy Moses, Policy Analyst with the Poverty Prosperity program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Newt Gingrich has recently been advancing policy proposals for reducing poverty in America. Gingrich’s description of the poverty problem reveals a condescending approach to the poor, while his tried-and-failed market-based solutions do little to help Americans living below the poverty line.

First, Gingrich assumes that poor people are culturally inferior. According to Gingrich, poor people need to develop a culture of “productivity” and that when they are around people who have money, they “learn very rapidly to show up at work on time, to actually keep part of their paycheck every week, to do all the things successful people do.” In short, poor people don’t work hard enough, don’t work well enough, and don’t save. However, the reality is:

– Full time minimum wage workers live below the poverty line. The federal minimum wage is simply not a living wage.

- Poor Americans do not work less than poor people in other nations.

- Low income people are experiencing the big squeeze of working longer hours, including multiple jobs and extended overtime just to make ends meet.

- By definition, poor people have less income to save. They are less likely to have employer-sponsored retirement plans or benefit from tax breaks that primarily go to middle- and high-income people. They pay more for basic financial services.

The second faulty assumption is that poverty is a black and urban issue. Gingrich chooses to frame his ideas about poverty around Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, and the city of Detroit. Otherwise, he refers to Native Americans living on reservations. Although such frames are an effective tool in diverting attention from troubling issues facing the U.S. economy, serious discussions about ending poverty can not be based on stereotypes or reinforce the idea that it is someone else’s problem. The reality is:

– Although poverty disproportionately affects people of color, all races are impacted, including whites who are the largest group (45 percent) amongst the poor.

- Rural communities experience levels of poverty that are similar to urban communities—14.5% and 17% respectively. And poverty also reaches the suburbs.

Not surprisingly, one of Gingrich’s primary suggestions is to cut taxes for corporations and the rich so that they will create more jobs. Nearly eight years of such tax cuts under the Bush Administration has increased the poverty rates and demonstrated that this is not a valid policy solution. Similarly, Gingrich’s proposals to encourage kids to work at the age of 14 and to only spend two or three years in high school would probably advance the contrary goal of creating an undereducated permanent underclass, but not get us very far in ending poverty.