High prices have voters despairing

SWANSBORO -- Seeds for pumpkins, beans and beets line the walls of the feed store in this tiny marshlands town, luring residents who don't know where else to turn and who don't believe any presidential candidate can fix things immediately.

Employee Tonya Adams, 35, of Hubert, sees young couples wandering into the S&H Feed and Garden Supply store to plant their first gardens, and she gives advice on seeds and soil.

She thinks the country is headed toward another recession. Joanne Lane, weighing seeds for a customer, agrees.

"You get gas and it's three-fifty, and you go to get a dozen eggs and you're paying $2. Milk is $4," says Lane, 47, of Swansboro. "You're almost getting to the breaking point."

As people in this corner of Eastern North Carolina have learned, rising gas prices ignite rising food prices, to the point that folks feel as though they can't decide whether to buy supper or fill their tanks. Some candidates for president and state offices have ideas, but many voters around here carry little but skepticism.

"I think the government has the opportunity to do something and they're not," Lane says. "I'm not sure any of the three candidates would do anything."

Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have pitched the idea of suspending the 18-cent federal gas tax for the summer. Democratic Sen. Barack Obama thinks that's a lousy idea that would save only about $25 for the average person. He proposes renewable energy instead.

In the gubernatorial race, Republican Bill Graham wants to suspend the state's 30-cent gas tax. He fought two years ago for a suspension of the state gas tax increase, finally claiming victory.

And though Republicans such as U.S. Sen. Richard Burr say a gas-tax holiday would help working-class families, AAA Carolinas spokesman Tom Crosby says the suspension would do little good.

What would happen, Crosby says, is that people would drive more and increase demand, pushing the price of gas up even more. He doesn't know the future.

"Dreary," he predicts.

'Back to the old ways'

Meanwhile, a couple of tomatoes costs $2 or $3 or even $4 at the grocery, says Nancy Bryson, 47, of Salter Path. At S&H Feed and Garden, she can buy a foot-tall tomato plant for a buck-fifty and get a few fresh ones every week all summer long.

She'll buy some peanuts, too, for the garden she expanded this year because the cost of food has become outrageous. With corn, beets, turnips, snap beans and cucumbers, she'll save $200 this summer. She'll can for the winter and save hundreds more.

Everyone's thinking about canning again, Adams says. "They're going back to the old ways."

Chris Sewell and his wife will start their first garden this spring to feed their three young children. He has grown so fed up that he doesn't much trust the government anymore.

"It's just kind of scary to me," said Sewell, a Swansboro Republican. "We're going to rely on ourselves."

Fuel prices already were hurting his fishing charter business. Rising fuel costs for other working fishermen mean higher prices for restaurants such as the T&W Oyster Bar.

There, Randy Swanson pays more for fresh fish nowadays and figures oysters too will be pricier by summer.

Already, he's paying $38 for a 15-pound sack of flour that three months ago cost just $14. He pays fuel surcharges to the Coca-Cola truck, the linens truck and the food service truck.

He refuses to raise menu prices, he says, because he knows families are scrambling as it is to treat themselves to a night out.

So the increases eat into his profits, right?