The Patriot Post® · High Gas Prices? Buy Electric, Says Buttigieg

There may be a myriad of reasons to explain why Joe Biden’s popularity is so low — the Afghanistan debacle, COVID vaccine mandates, his embrace of the hard-Left, economic stagnation, record numbers of illegal aliens pouring over an open border, spiking gas prices, and frightening levels of inflation, just to name a few.

But the common thread among all of these is the Biden administration’s instinctive elitist attitude. It’s the condescending message that “we’re smarter than all you American rubes.” And that message was fully on display when Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg effectively told Americans concerned over skyrocketing gas prices to go out and buy electric vehicles. Classic Marie Antoinette.

Stumping for Biden’s and the Democrats’ “Build Back Better” socialist spending boondoggle, Buttigieg noted that it included a “$12,500 discount” for the purchase of an electric vehicle so that “families who own that vehicle will never have to worry about gas prices again.” He went on to suggest that rural Americans “who have the most distances to drive, who burn the most gas” and poor city dwellers where gas prices are usually higher “would gain the most by having that [electric] vehicle.” He insisted, “These are the very residents who have not always been connected to electric vehicles that are viewed as a kind of luxury item.”

Well, maybe they’re viewed as a luxury item precisely because they are luxury items, even with taxpayers picking up a lot of the bill. The average price of an EV as of October, according to Kelly Blue Book, was $55,676, while the average price of a new compact car with a dreaded gas engine is less than half that amount, coming in at $25,240. The average price of a new gas-powered SUV is $34,122, still well below the price of an EV even after factoring in the EV “discount” Buttigieg hyped. In fact, the average price of a Luxury Subcompact SUV/Crossover is $44,285, over $10,000 less than an EV.

But of course, it’s all cake to Buttigieg, who contended, “If we can make the electric vehicle less expensive for everybody, more people can take advantage, and we’ll be selling more American-made EVs, which means in time they’ll become less expensive to make and to buy for everybody.” Well, according to AAA’s findings, an EV on average costs $600 more annually than gas-powered cars, even after factoring in the savings on fuel costs and maintenance.

The assertion that more Americans owning an EV is the solution for cutting household energy costs is simply nonsense, and Buttigieg knows it. As is the fairy tale that EVs are somehow emission free. The agenda here is all about promoting greater government control over the lives of Americans, not “saving the planet” or lowering the cost of living.

As political analyst David Harsanyi observes: “The notion that the United States is going to go ‘clean’ by 2030 or 2050 — or whatever year Democrats are now promising — without some yet-to-be discovered mind-blowing technological advance, is about as realistic as every family of four in Iowa going out and buying a Tesla. To reach that goal would mean taking on colossal economy-destroying costs, imposing draconian state-imposed restrictions on economic growth and freedom, and accepting a steep deterioration in our standard of living.”

Buttigieg lives in one of the wealthiest cities in the country, where he may opt to bike to work as his security detail follows closely behind in a EV, ready to pick him up at a moment’s notice. He felt free recently to take two months of paternity leave (on the taxpayers’ dime) for his and his male partner’s adoption of babies — all in the middle of the national supply-chain crisis. Meanwhile, regular Americans are struggling to figure out how to make ends meet. Shelling out $55,000 for an EV to avoid high gas prices is only a solution for the wealthy and out-of-touch politicians.