The Arizona Republic's Jan. 7 front-page story "Gas prices could top $3 a gallon in spring" will probably prove correct. But it leaves unaddressed the fundamental cause of higher prices: the mess the monetary and fiscal authorities have made of the U.S. dollar and its prospects.

When freshman Sen. Barack Obama said that a George W. Bush debt- ceiling hike was a sign of "leadership failure," he was right. When Bush came into office, the debt ceiling was less than $6 trillion dollars; it was $11.3 trillion when he went out the door. Bush presided over seven increases in eight years. Now Congress has raised the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, the third increase in Obama's presidency.

Just the increase in the debt under the leadership of Bush and Obama in the past two years is almost three times the entire federal debt accumulated between the nation's founding in 1776 and 1980.

Because long-term increases in sensitive barometers like the global price of oil and gold are a reflection of the world's assessment of the prospects for the dollar, a referendum on the U.S. debt and America's fiscal irresponsibility, it should come as no surprise that under Bush and Obama, increases in the debt ceiling have been a harbinger of higher gold and oil prices.