The Patriot Post® · Gas Pains Caused by Biden's Bloating
“The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. hit a new record high of $4.104 on Monday,” reports Fox News, “surpassing the previous record of $4.103 set in 2008 according to data from GasBuddy.”
Using a different measure, The Wall Street Journal adds: “The national average price for regular gasoline hit $4.173 a gallon, surpassing the previous record of $4.114 reached in July 2008, AAA said early Tuesday. The price was 15% higher than a week earlier and 21% higher than a month earlier, the automobile association’s figures showed.”
Let’s add a bit of analysis to that news: Joe Biden’s battle against fossil fuels on behalf of his party’s ecofascist agenda drove gas prices higher than they’ve been since Biden was Barack Obama’s sidekick in the same fight.
One caveat: The inflation-adjusted price in 2008 would work out to about $5.20 per gallon in today’s less valuable dollars, so Obama’s still got Biden beat. Small comfort.
The “I did that” stickers will be out in force given that gas prices rose more than 50 cents per gallon in the last week. And GasBuddy head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan says high prices will be here for some time: “It’s a dire situation and won’t improve any time soon. The high prices are likely to stick around for not days or weeks, like they did in 2008, but months. GasBuddy now expects the yearly national average to rise to its highest ever recorded.” Higher gas prices mean higher prices for everything, and one estimate puts the cost of this surge at $2,000 for the year.
For American families already beset by the massive tax hike of Bidenflation, this is not the news we wanted to hear.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is, of course, the immediate impetus for this price spike. After Saudi Arabia, Russia is the world’s second-largest crude oil supplier. The U.S. imports far too much Russian oil, largely thanks to Biden’s increases. Sanctions against Russia and interruptions of its oil supply definitely raised prices, as will Biden’s reported decision to ban Russian oil imports.
Besides that, what’s Biden’s plan?
Well, first, the massive price spike happened in the week following his SOTU announcement that he’d release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Clearly, markets knew what low-information voters might not have — that 30 million barrels would meet American demand for about a day and a half.
Second, OPEC has already told Biden to pound sand once, but he plans to go hat in hand to the Saudis, whom he’s already alienated, as well as Vladimir Putin’s vassals in Venezuela and ask them to pick up the slack in production Biden created here in the U.S. Donald Trump had sanctioned oil coming from Nicolas Maduro’s regime, but Biden’s policy is to do the opposite of whatever Trump did, so here we are.
Is oil taken out of the ground elsewhere somehow better for the environment? No; as a matter of fact, it’s usually worse. Nevertheless, Biden seemingly has a new slogan: Drill, baby, drill — anywhere but here!
Finally, Democrats plan to place blame everywhere else. “The real problem with increased gas prices is gouging and monopolies,” insisted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Other Democrats likewise accuse the oil companies of “greed.”
It’s the classic joke to define “chutzpah” — the man who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy on the grounds that he’s an orphan. Democrats are deliberately killing fossil fuels, all in an effort to transition to wind mills, solar panels, electric cars, and unicorn dust, and then they turn around and blame the oil companies for doing this to us. Just remember that Democrats want gasoline to hit whatever price per gallon it takes to get you to stop using it entirely. Never mind the damage that does to our economy or way of life.
As Mark Alexander notes: “So, Demos agree that shutting down Russia’s oil production will cripple their economy, but shutting down our production is good for our economy! Go figure!”
(Updated.)