A podcast host and former national press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders‘s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign discussed what nationalizing the oil industry would look like amid spiking fuel prices.
On Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Briahna Joy Gray cited articles that pointed out historic examples of when “for the same price that the country was bailing out the airline industry, it could just buy the airline industry.”
“It made me think about all of these instances historically in this country where there have been bailouts, bankruptcies and the like in which the state has come into control of these companies, most notably General Motors in 2008, and then quietly just returned them over to the companies without really doing what a normal acquisition would do which is to try and return benefit from the owner,” Gray said.
She added that the move would be “basically the same acquisition model that corporate mergers and everybody else does all the time.”
“It’s just the government that’s buying up majority shares, if not all of the company, and then implementing policies that are in the public benefit instead of for corporate profit,” she explained.
Her comments come as gas prices have recently skyrocketed after the U.S. banned oil imports from Russia amid its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Now, some states, like Maryland and Georgia, have already offered temporary pauses on gas taxes in an effort to make prices more bearable.
A recent Politico-Morning Consult poll showed that 73 percent of those surveyed said they backed a temporary break from federal taxes and 72 percent would support a similar move regarding state taxes..
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