President Biden is gaslighting America. His administration and many in the mainstream media are blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for the record high gas prices we are all experiencing. Biden and his administration seem reluctant to take any accountability or responsibility for the record high gas prices we are paying at the pump. At the time of writing this article, the national average price for a gallon of gas was $4.31.
Yes, much of the recent spike in gas prices we’ve seen in the last few weeks was caused, in large part, by Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the response of most of Western Europe and the United States. However, to completely blame Putin for the record high prices that we are seeing at gas stations across the country is disingenuous and misleading.
One common theme of this administration is to blame every problem that exists in America on everyone and everything else but themselves. Record-breaking inflation is no exception. Before Russian President Putin invaded Ukraine, gas prices had already risen 48% from the time Joe Biden had taken office. Prior to placing all the blame for increasing gas and oil prices at the feet of Putin, Biden was blaming OPEC for not pumping enough oil. When Joe Biden first took office, gas price averages were fluctuating between $2.20 and $2.30 a gallon. For the next year and a half, gas prices continued to rise steadily and continuously.
By November 2021, average gas prices had already risen to $3.55 per gallon in just eight months. It continued to rise exponentiallyuntil the time of this current conflict. So, Joe Biden and his administration want us to ignore the fact that gas prices rose significantly during his presidency, right up until Russia invaded Ukraine. This is because most of the rise was in large part, because of the anti-oil positions he has taken since the beginning of his presidency and how he thinks we should pursue energy in the future.
So, I would be remiss to say that there aren’t forces beyond Joe Biden and his administration’s control that are negatively affecting gas prices. However, his policy pursuits and actions are making the situation much worse than it should be and, if continued, will make us more vulnerable to these kinds of huge price hikes in the future. Joe Biden has made it extremely difficult to set up, build, and expand pipelines of any kind in order to expand production of energy within the United States.
On day one, Joe Biden cancelled the XL Keystone Pipeline, which, of course, killed about 11,000 high-paid jobs. Also on day one of his presidency, he froze all new leases for drilling on federal lands onshore and offshore. Biden also put a halt to drilling and development in ANWR, located in Alsaka, which has large petroleum reserves. As a result, oil production in the United States decreased dramatically. Contrary to what White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says, the United States is not producing record numbers of barrels of oil at present.
Truth be told, we are well below record levels. The United States is actually producing 1.5 million gallons less per day than in December 2019. Which, of course, was during the Trump administration, when the United States was energy independent and a net energy exporter. Last year, we lost this status, and now we are a net energy importer. It’s simple economics: when production and supply drop, and demand is still high, prices will skyrocket, as they have.
At the state level, governors are starting to feel the pinch, especially those that are up for re-election in the near future. These governors understand that if gas prices continue to be one of the main concerns of voters, their re-election and approval ratings are in jeopardy. So a series of governors from states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, all of whom are Democrats, wrote to Speakers Nancy Peloci, Kevin McCarthy and Leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell; asking for relief from the federal gas tax.
The federal gas tax, which is an easy source of revenue for the federal government because gas is a product that a vast number of Americans need, was passed primarily by Democrats and has been pushed and promoted by them for years on end. This same tax is now being asked to be relieved by Democrats. Interesting and quite telling, to say the least.
They wrote, “According to the American Automobile Association, the national average gas price in the United States is $4.17, up more than $1.00 from 2021.” They wrote, “The Gas Prices Relief Act, as introduced in the House and Senate, would alleviate the consumer cost of rising gas prices, while protecting the federal government’s capacity to make infrastructure investments.”They continued, “First, it saves Americans at the pump by suspending the federal gas tax for the rest of the year. Money saved at the pump translates into dollars back in consumers’ pockets for groceries, child care, rent, and more.”
It’s interesting that Democrats want to get rid of the tax they are mostly responsible for enacting in the first place. If only Democrats could apply this logic to taxes in general, we would be in a much better place than we are today. It turns out that when people pay fewer taxes; they have more money to invest and spend on things that truly matter. It’s quite amazing how the Democrats blame everyone else but themselves for problems, while at the same time pointing fingers at themselves and demanding that they fix problems they created.
So the rising gas prices before the Russian invasion are primarily on Joe Biden and his administration. While Biden says that he and his administration haven’t been holding up energy and oil production, the facts on the ground tell a much different story. First off, it is not an “apples to apples” comparison when Joe Biden and Jen Psaki state that there is more oil production in the first year of Biden’s term than in his predecessor’s (Donald Trump) first year.
President Donald Trump was in the process of reversing bad policies enacted by his predecessor, President Barack Obama and getting the ball rolling on his policies and positions that lead us to being energy independent and a net exporter of oil for the first time in over half a century. A better comparison would have been to compare 2021 to 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, which of course was befitting the world’s economy was artificially shut down and as mentioned earlier, when the United States was producing 1.5 million more gallons a day.
Joe Biden doesn’t want to accept responsibility for the terrible job he has done. To date, he blames everyone but himself for rising prices. On March 8, 2022, Joe Biden tweeted, “Let me say to oil and gas companies and the financial firms that back them: We understand that Putin’s war against the people of Ukraine is causing prices to rise. But that is no excuse for excess price increases, or padding profits, or any kind of effort to exploit this situation.”
This administration doesn’t want to take responsibility for lower domestic oil production, when in fact they should. Joseph Simonson wrote an article in the Washington Free Beacon, where he spelled it all out for us. He wrote, “Despite reassurances from the White House that it is doing nothing to discourage oil companies from opening new drill sites, President Joe Biden’s allies in Congress just months ago pressured oil executives to decrease output because of climate change, raising questions about the Democratic Party’s strategy to lower prices for consumers.”
He then writes, “In late October, for example, the House Oversite and Reform Committee called in CEOs of Exxon, BP, Shell, and Chevron to explain what steps they are taking to produce less oil and gas, with Rep. Hank Johnson (D. GA) alleging that ‘the world can’t wait any longer.’” At the time, gas prices were hovering at a 10-year high.
Simson continued, “’The hearing has gained new relevance as a global gas shortage has pushed prices to an all-time high.’ Jim McCarty, policy advisor to leading energy companies and CounterPoint Strategies president, said, ‘You can draw a direct line from how the Democrats marauded energy production yesterday to the unprecedented pain Americans are feeling at the pump today.’”
He is exactly right. There have been many Democrats calling for the United States to stop oil production. There is one hearing that really stands out where Ro Khanna (D., CA), demanded that domestic oil companies cut their production and end their dependency on oil imports. In that hearing, Ro Khanna questioned Shell president Gretchen Watkins, in an exchange on whether she agreed with the provisions agreed upon in the Paris Climate Agreement and whether Shell would agree to decrease its production each year by 2 percent.
This was obviously in an effort to make it known that the U.S. needs to have less oil production every year. So it’s important to remember, while Jen Psaki and the mainstream media place blame and parrot statements about the 9,000 plus permits for drilling on federal land that oil companies haven’t supposedly taken advantage of and tapped into, they fail to mention that companies have to obtain additional permits for “rights-of-way” in order to access leases and build pipelines to even transport fuel from these same sites.
These leases have become much harder to get under the Biden Administration. Because of the harsh regulations set forth by Biden, companies must also build up an inventory of permits before they can even start to contract rigs. It is currently taking at least 140 days before any one of these permits gets approved. These are just a few reasons why oil companies aren’t rushing to drill on these untapped resources. Mostly because this administration has made it extremely difficult to do so.
Instead of pointing the blame at everyone else, they should take a hard look in the mirror and see how their policies, regulations, and overbearing anti-oil and gas rhetoric certainly haven’t made for a pleasant environment, where oil companies feel comfortable investing in and expanding.
So don’t let Joe Biden, his administration, and his mainstream media allies GASLIGHT you. The Biden Administration has taken overt action to hurt American energy production. Everyone that is paying close attention is calling their bluff. Gas prices aren’t up just because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and cutting ourselves off of Russian gas supplies. It is also because of Joe Biden, his administration, and the Democrats’ steady transition away from domestic oil production.
With the stroke of a pen, Joe Biden shut down our energy independence, and now we are paying for it with record high gas prices. Gas prices have been going up since the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency. The Democrats solution to all this is to buy an electric car and to undermine natural gas and oil production.
Many hardworking Americans can’t afford to go spend $60,000 or more on an electric vehicle. The 40 year record 7.9% inflation is already eating away at their incomes. Instead, their solution should be to ramp up gas production, open up the XL Pipeline, encourage the development of oil and natural gas, resend Biden’s executive order signed at the beginning of his presidency and allow new leases for drilling and fracking on federal land. This will ensure that we are energy independent, so we can stop relying on our enemies and adversaries for one of our most important goods.
Unfortunately, this administration is too prideful, weak, and stupid to admit any wrongdoing and course correct any actions that are causing the exacerbation of these problems. As such, the 2022 midterms certainly aren’t going to bode well for them. In the meantime, it appears that we are in for a long, difficult, and costly ride.
Marcus Watkins is a God first, conservative, grassroots GOP political activist and proud family man. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism from Columbia College Chicago. Marcus is National Director for the Michigan Republican Assembly, an advisor to and member of BLEXIT Michigan (Former Assistant State Director), a member of the Wayne County Republican Party, Citizens of Free Speech and Michigan Leadership Group. He writes about culture and politics and is a lover of baseball, jazz and fine wine.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
Parler: https://parler.com/AFNNUSA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA
This is much more than gaslighting. Looking at every action this president has taken, his intentions are not anything good for our country. Plain old lying and deceiving. That’s evil intent. I’m talking Ten Commandments evil. And claiming to be a Roman Catholic, along with Speaker Pelosi, the both of them, as leaders, have broken other Commandments, as far as their attitude about the unborn and the transexual evilness is doing, not to mention the blasphemy that both Pelosi and Biden do to their alleged faith. Our president is a representative of Satan.
Whatever that hearing did, it did nothing compared to the harm Joe Biden has done to the American public.
Like you said, Donald Trump was reversing the actions of the previous embarrassment of a president. Some of these actions by Joe Biden may not be reversible.
Your bio is full of very good creds.
Good to see you here, Marcus.