As President Obama noted on Thursday, down in Florida, oil is bought and sold on the world market - so the price isn't determined by him. It isn't even determined primarily by demand. The two biggest items that are causing the price of oil to go up are speculators and the instability of some American politicians pushing for war with Iran.

The idea that a President could simply bring down the price of oil single-handedly, so that a gallon of gas would cost $2.50 - like Newt Gingrich spouted the other day - is simply ridiculous. Building the Keystone pipeline also wouldn't help lower gas prices.

Every time politicians get into trouble in an election year, they drag out the overused bumper sticker mentality that America should just do [whatever the politician wants] and suddenly the price of gas will go down.

As Michael Mechanic at Mother Jones noted this week, the only thing a President can do to really drop the price of gas in the short term is change the Federal tax rate. But as the chart below clearly shows, Americans are already paying a significantly lower Federal tax rate on gasoline.

As Mechanic also notes, "…the guys who want Obama's job claim that he wants to make America just like Europe. A question to test that theory: How much more federal tax do you pay per gallon under President Obama than you did under George W. Bush?"

Read the full story HERE to find out the answer.