Last night, Glenn Beck -- after he'd finished playing with his Easy-Bake Nuclear Reactor -- squeezed in a little fearmongering about gas prices. According to Beck, we're staring at the possibility of gasoline rationing, and he even held up a book of ration stamps from “the last time we had a real progressive, strong government.”
Watch:
The ration booklet Beck held up wasn't something from the recent past -- after all, he said “your grandparents probably knew what this was.” In fact, it appeared to be an Office of Price Administration War Ration Book.
War rations. As in World War II.
Franklin Roosevelt instituted mandatory civilian gasoline rationing in 1942 in order to conserve rubber for military use -- less driving means less wear on tires. Synthetic rubber production was in its infancy and the Japanese had taken control of the big natural rubber-producing territories, which put the U.S. in a tough spot rubber-wise. So the rationing was less a manifestation of scary progressive policies than it was a necessary measure to make sure our military had the resources to win World War II.
