I & I Editorial BoardYou can’t open a newspaper or watch cable news these days without seeing a story about the pain and suffering Americans are feeling at the pump, with scary headlines such as “no relief in sight” and “the worst is yet to come.”
Actually, when it comes to gas prices, the worst has come and gone – three times – all while Democrats were in the White House. Not that you’d ever know that from the mainstream media.
Shortly after those headlines ran, gas prices started to moderate. AAA says they are down by about 10 cents a gallon from a week ago. That’s not much, but it’s far from “soaring.”
And while it’s true that President Donald Trump’s attacks on the Iranian regime have pushed oil prices sharply upward, you have to consider everything in context.
When news reports talk about “record high” prices, they aren’t accounting for inflation. When you do that, today’s prices are far from the highest they’ve ever been.
As a reader service, we compiled monthly data on real (inflation-adjusted) gas prices starting in 1977 – the year Jimmy Carter took office.
We then averaged them for each administration.
What do you see? Except for the Clinton administration, prices have been unusually high under Democrats, and relatively low under Republicans.
Reagan’s average is on the high end because he inherited sky-high gas prices from Jimmy “Malaise” Carter. When Reagan came into office, gas was over $5 a gallon in today’s dollars. The month he left office, it was $2.40.
Clinton, in contrast, inherited low prices from George H.W. Bush, which were $2.48 in his first month in office but were on their way up when he left – averaging $2.9 a gallon in his last year.
Although you’d never know it from the coverage, Barack Obama presided over stratospheric prices for the entirety of his two terms in office – when they averaged $4.32 a gallon. Democrats weren’t complaining, and the media treated it as an inevitability while Obama chanted that “you can’t drill your way to cheap gas.”
But you could. And prices came down sharply under Trump, only to go flying back up Joe “We’re Going to End Fossil Fuels” Biden. Even with the spike in prices from the Iran conflict since Trump came back into office, they are still averaging below where they were under Biden.
Here’s another way to look at it. Over the past 50 years, inflation-adjusted prices topped $5 a gallon in a total of 53 months. A Republican was in the White House in only 14 of those months. Six happened in early 1981, when Reagan was liberating the oil industry from price controls. The others were during the 2008 financial crisis that happened during George W. Bush’s term.
The high prices under Carter, Obama, and Biden were the direct result of bad energy policies. Price controls and rationing in the case of Carter, and the “climate change” war on fossil fuels under Obama and Biden (a war that any future Democratic president will restart).
Now go back and read all those news accounts and see if any of them reflect these realities.
A Sampling of Recent Headlines from ‘Objective’ News Media
- “Americans Have Spent $100 Billion More on Fuel During the Iran War” — Wall Street Journal
- “Consumers Hit By One-Two Punch Of Oil And Rates From Iran War. The Estimated Bill Is $1,700 Per Household” — CNBC
- “‘How Are We Gonna Get Through This?’ Americans Face Tough Decisions As Diesel And Gas Prices Rise” — ABC News
- “No Relief In Sight For U.S. Drivers As Gas And Diesel Prices Surge” — CBS News
- “Gas Prices Are About To Take A Big Jump, Analysts Say, With The Worst Still To Come” — Washington Post
Yes, the war in Iran has pushed prices up, which raises the question of whether it is worth paying more at the pump to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. (We think it is.)
Whatever you think of the war, however, it will end soon enough and, as Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno said at a Breitbart roundtable, “the second that conflict is down, gas prices will crash.”
Moreno had it exactly right when he followed up by saying, “If you want gas prices to go down, the last thing you should do is allow Democrats to take office, because it’ll make it permanently high. That’s what we saw under Joe Biden, and that’s what we’ll see under whatever lunatic comes next.”
You don’t have to take Moreno’s word for it. Or ours. Just look at the data.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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DemocRATs never complained about $4 gas under Obama or even $6 gas under Biden, but now they’re screaming about a temporary <$4 gas under Trump. I guarantee, the first opportunity they get, they will do everything in their power to drive the price to $10/gallon.
If you want a country that’s safe, prosperous, not totally corrupt, pro-American, and logical – never elect a Democrat.
I always remember the government saying that they don’t control gas prices but they seem to forget that if you ignite military sanctions and actions against the nations that supply gas then therefore prices go up. Liquid gold right under our feet. Who said that? Live your life to the fullest regardless of gas prices because eventually we all go six deep.
Democratic ideology tends to ignore the wisdom of, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
Years before Iran, gas in CA was the highest in the nation by a dollar or a dollar and a half at least by their imposed standards of “perfection,” that their gas had to be purer than all other gas.
Greatly improved gas engines, lighter weight cars, improved gas milage, catalytic converters and other improvements, not withstanding, CA
Democrats sought gas that was so perfect it was not even refined in their own local refineries, because they had put them out of business by seeking perfection in refining, too. They import gas on ships!! Nothing to do with Iran, but due to a suicidal ideology of our good friends out there who ignore the basic facts of business and the facts of life and ignore the wisdom of the phrase above.
And Heaven help the USA because one of our “perfect” friends out there wants to be President!
President Biden increased domestic oil production by 30%. Too bad the facts don’t support your fascist propaganda.
Facts are that Trump approved the land grants to drill, something that Democrats won’t do. Biden then approved the Trump’s permits to produce oil and in fact, approved the least amount of land grants so, the increase was due to Trump.
The mass approval under Biden is related to the delays in approving the permits, that happened under Biden.
Nice try.
“whether it is worth paying more at the pump to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”
I’ve heard this from republicans so frequently these days – only if it was true. Are we really doing this to prevent rogue nations from getting nuclear weapons? Or is it because Trump has had a historical grudge against Iran, and we are paying the price for it at the pump.
President Clinton had a Republican House and Senate, the first time in forty years, as a result of The Contract with America. Perhaps that’s why gasoline prices were low.