The Shadow
President Joe Biden has found his scapegoat, Vladimir Putin, blaming Putin for the soaring prices of gasoline because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The average price for a gallon of gasoline nationwide on Jan. 20, 2021, Biden’s first day in office, was $1.86 compared to the current historical high of $4.32.
While Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has led to startling spikes in gasoline prices, about 75 percent of the current price spike occurred before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was launched on Feb. 24.
Despite the fact that the average price for a gallon of gasoline had risen steadily prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the national record of $4.10 per gallon set in 2008 during the recession was broken on March 10, two weeks into the war in Ukraine.
Motivated by Nancy Pelosi (D), speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Chuck Schumer (D), the U.S. Senate majority leader, the Biden Administration has capitulated and stopped the purchase of oil from Russia.
President Biden’s Administration has been using the talking point, “Putin’s price hike,” despite the fact that gasoline prices have been soaring since President Biden took office and shut down the Keystone Pipeline on his first day in office.
He has reversed President Donald J. Trump’s decision to open Alaska’s Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for oil and gas exploration and added new regulations that amount to more hoops for oil and gas companies to jump through in order to get fossil fuels out of the ground.
For example, while Jen Jsaki, President Biden’s press secretary, touts that there are 9,000 permits for drilling oil that have been approved, she neglects to tell the press that 2,200 of those permits are bound up in red tape going through litigation and that other permit holders have to get other permits such as air and water before drilling can be done.
Critics of the Biden Administration point to the extra regulations that the current administration has implemented to create more red tape that will prevent the companies holding the permits from drilling due to the added costs involved.
President Biden boasted during his campaign that he would put a stop to the U.S. relying on drilling for fossil fuels and that he would support the transition to renewable energy that will help the world prevent further damaging climate change.
Also, President Biden claims that it is the oil and gas industry’s fault along with Putin’s that gasoline prices have hit an all-time high.
President Biden’s critics point out that of the 700 million acres of federal mineral land, only 26.2 million acres are available to secure permits for drilling, and the number is at an all-time low.
His critics also point out that many of those acres will never be utilized for drilling due to the discovery that the oil and gas deposits at those sites are too low to return a profit on investment.
Adding to the problem for drilling, right-of-way permits to the permitted drilling sites are often hard to come by, and with the anti-pipeline position the Biden Administration has taken, the companies’ inability to move gas and oil by pipeline from their well heads remains a reason for companies not to drill.
Soaring oil and gas prices are not the only contributors to the 7.9 percent increase in inflation reported by the U.S. Labor Department for Feb. The report shows that the 0.8 percent rise contributes to the 7.9 percent yearly rise, the highest yearly rise in inflation since 1982.
Critics of the Biden Administration point to the fact that the 7.9 rise in inflation as reported by the U.S. Consumer Price Index took place entirely under President Biden’s watch.
President Biden’s attempt to deflect blame for rising inflation by blaming Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a political ploy aimed at creating a winning narrative for Democrats during the midterms.
By placing the rising prices at the foot of Putin, President Biden is being countered by his political opponents who are posting stickers on gasoline pumping tanks across the nation. The stickers depict President Biden pointing his finger like Uncle Sam at gasoline pump’s window that displays the price. The caption above his head reads, “I did that!”
In less than two months past President Biden’s first year in office, the Biden Administration’s diversionary tactic to deflect blame for the 7.9 percent increase in inflation centers on Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine.
Those critics who look back to the year 2021 point out that groceries rose 8.6 percent, clothing items, 6.6 percent; meat and poultry, 13 percent; airfare, 13 percent; shelter, 4.6 percent; used cars, 41 percent; fruits and vegetables, 7.6 percent; and energy, 25.6 percent.
While the Biden Administration touts the job market recovery as a feather in President Biden’s cap and takes full credit for the low employment rate (3.8 percent) that President Biden touts as a result of his American Rescue Plan, his critics note that the wage gains of workers for his first year in office were wiped out by inflation that has created hardship on American families to pay for food, rent and gasoline.
Currently, President Biden touts that 6.3 million Americans have been added since he took office and that there are only 2.1 million workers who have filed for unemployment benefits.
The Democrat Party and the Biden Administration are aware that 23 Democrats in the House of Representatives compared to eight Republicans have decided not to run for office during the mid-terms.
Democrats currently enjoy a 226-213 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, but with 23 Democrats retiring compared to only eight Republicans, the Biden Administration is aware of its vulnerability regarding the midterms.
Thus, the strategy to blame Putin for inflation that has rocked the nation since President Biden was sworn into office continues to be implemented by the Democrats whose newly adopted mantra to sway voters’ opinion about inflation is, “Putin’s price hike.”
Both President Biden and Jen Psaki have claimed recently that during 2021 more oil was produced in the U.S. than during President Trump’s last year in office.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s records show that less was produced in 2021 (11,185 million barrels per day) than in 2020 (11,283 million barrels per day).
