Gasoline Prices Headed Right Where The Democrats Want Them

While running for president, Barack Obama said electricity prices will “necessarily skyrocket” under his energy plan. As gasoline reaches unaffordable heights for many Americans, never forget that the Democratic Party wants to inflict painful energy costs on the country. It’s in its political DNA.

As of Thursday, the average U.S. price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $4.32, the highest ever recorded in this country. A month ago, it was $3.48. A year ago, about six weeks after Joe Biden took the oath of office, it was $2.82. 

Recent projections that the U.S. average would peak at $4.25 a gallon around Memorial Day weekend now seem quaint. Would anyone be surprised if prices were nearly double that in much of the country before they begin to recede?

Biden has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for soaring prices, and swears his administration is trying to bring down prices. But the truth is, the Democratic Party wants gasoline to be priced as a luxury good, even if it hurts Democratic voters in the middle and lower economic classes:

• Last month, Bloomberg reported that Mark Mazur, a U.S. Treasury official under Obama, said a gas-tax holiday “undercuts the administration’s climate change goals” and that “we don’t want lower prices for fossil-fuel buyers, we prefer higher prices.”
• Earlier this week, ZeroHedge noted that “Canada says its oil could replace U.S. imports of Russian crude, all it would take is approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.” But the Democrats treat that pipeline as if it’s a passageway straight to Hell. Biden killed the project, which had been greenlighted by Donald Trump, on his first day in office. There are no circumstances that we can imagine under which the Democrats would let that extension be built.
• Though he had to be reasonably sure, if not 100% certain, that Russia would soon invade Ukraine, and result in higher domestic gasoline prices, Biden nevertheless blocked new drilling leases and permits in February. Pay no attention to the yapping that it would take years for crude and gas from these sources to reach consumers. The prices we pay today reflect the market’s knowledge that supply will be limited in the future.
• The Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this week that “Biden’s allies in Congress just months ago pressured oil executives to decrease outputs because of climate change, raising questions about the Democratic Party’s strategy to lower prices for consumers.” The chief executives of ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and Chevron were summoned before the Democrat-chaired, Democrat-majorty House Oversight and Reform Committee last fall, where lawmakers demanded they explain what steps they were taking “to produce less oil and gas.” Of course cutting production leads to higher prices.
• Steven Chu, who eventually became the Obama Energy secretary, revealed the Democrats’ twisted thinking when in 2008 he said “somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” which in many cases tend to be about three times higher than the U.S. price. Years later Chu said he no longer held that position. There’s plenty of reason to believe he never really changed his mind.

Fourteen years ago, as Obama was headed for his coronation, a contributor to The Hill wrote that Democrats “want higher gas prices, because high gas prices will change behavior. … This is the bargain that the voters get with the Democrats.”

And voters got it good and hard this time, including the 74 million who knew what the Democrats have been up to and voted Trump.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board