Rick Santorum: High Gas Prices Caused The Recession

Rick Santorum claimed high gas prices caused the recession on Monday.

"We need to look at the situation with gas prices today," he said Monday at a campaign stop in Lansing, Mich. "We went into a recession in 2008 because of gasoline prices. The bubble burst in housing because people couldn't pay their mortgages because they were looking at $4 a gallon gasoline."

"Look at what happened," continued the former Pennsylvania senator. "Economic decline. Here we are again. Trying to struggle out of a recession with Barack Obama and the federal government on the backs of business, not letting them grow. And now we have energy prices again, why? Because of government policy."

Most attribute the economic recession to a combination of the collapse in the housing market and the financial crisis. However, a paper by economist James Hamilton suggested that the oil price shock in the summer of 2008 was an important factor dragging the economic slowdown into recession.

Santorum made the same claim in early February speaking in Colorado prior to the state's primary.