Pump prices fuel politics

11Eddie had just come in from changing the price on the sign again. Regular gas had gone up another dime to $3.799 a gallon, still 30 or 40 per cent cheaper than in Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver, but V-Plus Premium was already at $4.04, with no ceiling in sight.

A banner touted that every gallon at Shell was a nickel cheaper on Thursdays, but Thursday was still two long days and an empty tank away.

"How much higher would gas have to go for Obama to lose the election?" I asked the boys.

"Right now, I'm on the fence," Eddie Burgos replied. "He said he was gonna bring change, and he did -- he messed up everything. Four dollars a gallon; maybe it's not his fault. This is a 20-year buildup; it didn't happen yesterday. But if it goes over five, he's in trouble."

The kid from Ethiopia didn't say anything. He'd only been in the country for three months. I threw my best Amharic at him -- chigger yellum, which means "no problem" -- and got a toothy smile and a thumb's-up in return.

"Lucky kid," I said to Eddie. "He can't vote or drive."

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But Eddie Burgos could do both, and he started getting all dewy-eyed remembering being in Florida about a decade ago and gas selling for less than a dollar. That was when he bought a brand-new Toyota Tundra with a 5.7-litre V-8 engine. It cost $44,000, but man, that truck was sweet.

"Where is the Tundra now?" I wondered. I didn't see it behind the garage.

"I gave it up when gas hit three bucks," Eddie sighed. "Now I'm trying to find something with a two-cylinder engine. I'd ride my bicycle, but by the time I got home I'd be so hungry, I'd have to eat twice. I'd spend more on food than I do now on gas."

I was on my way down to the White House to watch the president take a victory lap for saving George W. Bush's payroll tax cut. A week earlier, the Big Guy's staff had recruited the usual harlequin assortment of "ordinary Americans" to testify how much this governmental beneficence -- worth about $40 per pay period to the mythical average middle-class worker -- would hurt them if those mean (old, white, male, Republican) congressmen were to let it expire.

The tax break was extended. So much for dealing with the national debt. And now those same 20 men and women -- most of them significantly overweight -- were smooshed together again on a riser behind Barack Obama, who was telling us how "for the typical American family, it is a big deal. It means $40 extra in their paycheque. And that $40 helps to pay the rent, the groceries, the rising cost of gas -- which is on a lot of people's minds right now."

It certainly was on Victor Lourenco's mind when I found him filling up his pickup truck at an Exxon station just down the street from Eddie and the Ethiopian. Gas at Exxon was the same as at Shell: $3.79, with diesel at a diabolical $4.80. I told Victor I had just seen the president crowing about saving him forty bucks.

"Forty bucks is not gonna make a difference to anybody," said Lourenco, who runs a little bricklaying and masonry company in the Maryland suburbs. "Who believes what politicians promise anyway? Maybe two out of 10 come true."

Victor Lourenco told me his family came from Porto in Portugal, where gas this week is selling for $1.40 a litre, which is about the same as it costs in Quebec. He didn't blame Obama for the soaring price of fuel, which never has been more expensive here at this tepid and snowless time of year.

"He's got so much stuff on his plate, it's like you didn't even read the menu and order dinner yet, and they shove a plate full of food at you," Victor said.

But there were limits to the mason's patience.

"If gas hits six dollars, that's it, man. I park the truck."

I went back up the street to see how Eddie and the kid were doing, and they still were staring at Eddie's phone and talking about moving to Brazil, where gas is only 82 cents.

"Chigger yellum," I offered once again.

"America's down now," Eddie from Honduras was telling the African. "But if it picks up, you'll see man, it picks up crazy."

Allen Abel is a Brooklyn-born Canadian journalist based in Washington, D.C.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 25, 2012 J1