Joe Biden and the Democrats have been getting hammered over their failures on inflation and high gas prices. It’s a big reason why they are behind in all the polls and are likely to get wiped out in the midterms if we all get out and vote.
Biden has repeatedly tried to deflect blame for the high prices by blaming everything and everyone else from Vladimir Putin to greedy oil companies. He’s failed to explain why gas prices started going up since he was elected and how he attacked the energy industry from day one of his term in office. We saw him try to influence the election by begging the Saudis to put off a production cut so that it wouldn’t impact prices in this country until after the election. We’ve also seen him obscuring the reality of the situation and not addressing the problem by continuously swiping from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help the Democrats’ chances in the election, without regard for our national security. The high gas prices are directly attributable to his attacks on the energy industry and the restrictions he’s imposed.
Now, Biden is trying to pull another ploy out of his hat in an effort to influence people before the election. He is proposing a “windfall” tax on oil companies for making profits, to pretend that he’s doing something about gas prices.
A White House official told The Hill that Biden will call on oil and gas companies to invest their profits in “in lowering costs for American families and increasing production.”
If they don’t do so, the president will call on Congress to consider “requiring oil companies to pay tax penalties and face other restrictions,” the official said via email.
The official did not use the phrase “windfall tax,” but the president appears to be targeting the companies’ profits after Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell reported major profits from July through September.
This is a great tweet that explains what is happening here, but the Biden team doesn’t care about reality.
Biden’s proposal likely wouldn’t get passed in Congress, and Biden’s team has to know this. So this is just a cynical political move to make it look like he’s acting and maybe blame Republicans if they didn’t vote in favor of it.
But if it did pass, it would make everything worse, because those taxes would be passed onto the consumer in still higher prices, which is why the GOP would be against it. So it would have the opposite effect. If Biden doesn’t even understand this and Democrats are going along with this, this is just one more reason that no one should vote for them because they are clueless/uncaring about the effects of their horrible policies.
It also would add still more insecurity into the industry which already has been under continuous attack from the Biden Administration.
Meanwhile, Biden has continued to lie and say he isn’t attacking the industry as he gears up to attack them yet again.
Gas prices are still far higher now under Biden than they were when he came into office, despite him lying about them being high when he came in. They were $2.34 on average nationally when he came in and are now averaging $3.76.
What he should be doing is having a consistent position that isn’t attacking the industry. That would immediately help. But he wants to phase them out, and he refuses to commit to such a position to help us be energy-independent. That’s why we’re in this mess. And this would only make everything worse.