If ya can’t win ‘em over, bribe 'em. That seems to be the logic of desperate Democrats looking to remain in power by any means necessary.

Even so, it’ll be a tall order. As sitting presidents go, so goeth their party — and Joe Biden’s numbers continue to go in the wrong direction. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll shows that just 21% of likely voters strongly approve of the job Biden is doing, whereas 49% strongly disapprove. That gives him a Presidential Approval Index of -28, well within a range that augurs electoral catastrophe.

Perhaps a shellacking is inevitable for the Democrats. Perhaps all that’s left to determine is how many coats. Perhaps turbocharging inflation, gumming up our supply chains, eliminating our nation’s energy independence, sending gas prices soaring, rolling out the red carpet on our southern border, emboldening Russia and China, retreating from Afghanistan, demoralizing the world’s mightiest military, enacting unconstitutional vaccine mandates, demagoguing our nation’s voting laws, heightening tensions between and among the races, giving criminals carte blanche, enabling record fentanyl deaths, and siccing the DOJ on concerned parents — perhaps the cumulative effects of all these deleterious things have solidified in the minds of the American electorate.

Perhaps. But the Democrats aren’t going to take it lying down. As Axios reports: “The White House considered giving Americans gas cards to help offset high prices, but faced strong opposition from congressional committees, which questioned the plan’s viability and effectiveness. … The Biden administration is feeling political pressure from high energy costs, made worse by Western sanctions against Russia, and Democrats desperately want to offer some kind of policy response.”

Unfortunately for the Democrats, a lone voice of sanity seemed to pour cold water on the idea. According to Axios, a House Democrat counsel convinced them, correctly, that the plan would be expensive and poorly targeted, could worsen inflation and fail to lower costs, and could bog down the IRS in the middle of tax season, thereby delaying people’s tax refunds.

Another bad bit of bribery being considered by the Democrats is sending out more stimulus checks — in other words, printing more money. And here we thought the idea was to reduce inflation rather than increase it, which pumping more dollars into the economy will invariably do.

This gasoline bribe seems to be a refinement of an idea introduced by House Democrats earlier this month: that of taxing the largest oil companies and using the money to provide quarterly checks to Americans facing sticker shock at the pump. As Business Insider reports:

The legislation would apply only to large firms like Exxon Mobil that produce or import over 300,000 oil barrels a day and exempt smaller companies. The 50% tax would be imposed on the difference between the current price of a barrel and the average price between 2015 to 2019. Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island are the bill’s main sponsors. Cosponsors include Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. The plan would also establish a quarterly payment program to provide direct payments to Americans struggling with rising prices.

As a general rule, any income redistribution scheme with socialist Bernie Sanders’s name on it is an awful idea. This one is no exception.

It never ceases to amaze us that leftists seem to think they can raise taxes on American businesses with impunity — that those businesses will simply absorb the additional costs of doing business without passing them on to their customers. Somewhere, Democrats understand this, or they wouldn’t be floating the idea of suspending the federal gasoline tax.

The short of all this? Beware of Democrats bearing gifts. The only thing they want from gullible Americans is their vote. And they’ll do anything to get it.