1 in 10 cutting back on medications in order to pay for gas!!! I wonder how many people are putting their lives in danger just so they can buy gasoline?
I also wonder how many people have given up cable or satellite TV? Are questions like that taboo in our materialist society? The cabal of Wall St and Madison Ave do rule America and we cannot even suggest cutting people's exposure to advertising and mind numbing entertainment.

"Seventy-eight percent of those surveyed feel that the Federal government should step in and set limits on prices"

No wonder the rest of the world thinks that most of the people in USA are idiots. Do they think that the Federal government will somehow have shipments of gas delivered by the "gas-fairy" ???
The prices are high to reduce consumption because there is no greater supply. having low gas prices would soon result in "No Gas" ...

@ John:
I would say that there is a lot of things the Fed could do to reduce prices.. most of them would require aggressive, even damaging, foreign policy (i.e. attach tariffs to fuel-exporting countries' food and medicine - tying the prices of oil we pay to the prices of food they need to import; sanctions; currency leveraging; trade-wars; create OPIC - Organization of Petroleum IMPORTING Countries to have a greater bargaining position/bloc, etc..).
I don't agree with it... but it exists if we want it bad enough - so don't make generalizations.

Ted Koppel said it best on The Daily Show the other night (I'll summarize):

The Iraq War is the only war in which the government has NOT raised taxes to fund. As a result, the USA owes a huge amount of money ($600 billion to $1 trillion, IIRC) to primarily two countries - China and Japan.

This huge amount of debt has caused the value of the dollar to decline by 50% - raising the price of everything we import, with oil being one that is very important.

Combine this with the fact that China is working very hard to modernize their country and bring the poor of the country in to the middle class - which means that more and more cars are being put on China roads. It's estimated that 10 million new cars will be put on China's roads today. And what are all those cars powered by? Oil.

It's no wonder that oil prices are at record highs.

Drilling for oil locally is unfortunately only a short-term solution. Something that McCain even said about 6 weeks ago. Since then, he has flip-flopped on the situation and now wants to drill along all the coasts from the USA for oil - even when he himself knows that it will take years for that oil to have an effect on supply and that effect will only be short lived.

BTW, Ted Koppel is hosting a series of shows on Discovery called "People's Republic of Capitalism", July 9th-12th at 10pm, which should be very insightful.

@Jer

none of your proposals would work for the following reasons:

1) most oil-exporting countries are, if not self-sufficient in food, then at least do not need to import very much, and none of what they need to import comes solely from the US; they can buy wheat, grain, sugar etc from any of a hundred different countries. so, a food embargo unilaterally entered into by the US would be ineffective, as well as in violation of World Trade Organization rules.

2) unilateral sactions (what kind of sanctions?) would also be ineffective; it is only when the entire international community collaborates on sanctions that they have some small measure of success, and believe me you will have a hard time convincing any member of the EU, ASEAN or MERCOSUR to go along with such a harebrained scheme.

3) currency leveraging- unclear phraseology. leverage is the use of borrowing to juice returns, hard to see how that could be applied in this situation.

4) trade wars: ??? what exactly do you have that you think the rest of the oil-exporting world will want to go to war over?

5) OPIC: Europe is already a kind of proxy-OPIC, being overwhelmingly energy-importing nations. don't appear to have much traction with OPEC, hard to imagine how the addition of smaller players on the global stage like New Zealand or South Africa would make any difference.

Overall, the scary thing about your proposals is not the tremendous ignorance of the rest of the world that leads you to believe they might work, but that you genuinely believe that the irreparable harm to America's relations with the rest of the world that would inevitably result is justified in order to shave a couple of cents off the price of a gallon of gas.

"partially filling gas tanks (31%)" I guess the efficiency improvement from the reduced weight will add up. Not nearly so dramatic with cars as airplanes!

If federal government set a price ceiling on gas, then we would soon have supply short-falls. This is a no-win move. You end up with more disruptions, not less.

The Chinese government recently had to rapidly increase their government set gas price because of crippling supply short-falls.

Price controls usually magnify the eventual inflation pressure. China will probably learn this lesson eventually.

Not too many people were interviewed who are in the lowest economic class stuggling to keep their car running. One in 10 cutting back on meds? That's dangerous in itself, but there are people who couldn't afford meds in the first place. There some people(1%?,not mentioned) who no longer can put gas in the car, with no public transit option available to get to some minimum wage job.

"Do they think that the Federal government will somehow have shipments of gas delivered by the "gas-fairy" ???"

Pattern recognition Class 222, "When debunking an idea or belief use references to childlike imaginings like 'tooth fairy,' 'fairy godmother' and 'magic wand.' This establishes your position as a sober, authoritative adult overseeing the juvenile fancies of ignorance."

"The number of Americans traveling 50 or more miles from home this holiday weekend will decrease by 0.9% to 37.87 million." AAA, May 2008

The thing that really bugs me fellows, is why these people in NA will not listen to reason. They know the price of gas is rising. They know the earth is heating. They know the polar bear is struggling to survive. And off they go as if nothing real is happening. Either they are stupid beyond measure or... I am.