When it comes to gas prices, there has been plenty to complain about since Old Joe Biden began his president act. There have also been numerous indications that aside from the alleged president’s fact-free boasting, the Biden regime actually likes high gas prices, as they help them push their green agenda. Another sign of the regime’s actual view of rising gas prices came when Old Joe tabbed Jared Bernstein to be chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Like you and me, Bernstein has complained about gas prices. But unlike us, Bernstein thinks they’re too low.
The Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday that Bernstein actually “lamented in 2015 that gas prices were ‘too damn low.’” This was at a time when gas cost $2.09 per gallon. Instead of celebrating the benefits that this low price brought to the American people, Bernstein wrung his hands about how bad this supposedly was because of (you guessed it) climate change: he “asserted that ‘seriously under-priced’ fuel costs had ‘scary’ consequences for the environment because they stoked demand for fossil fuels.” And this cold-blooded ideologue had a solution: add yet another tax to the already heavy tax burden the American people were carrying. Bernstein “suggested a gas tax hike, even as he acknowledged that low prices at the pump help working families.”
A pocket-picking authoritarian statist is, of course, just the sort of person the Biden regime wants running things, and so Bernstein “could soon have a prominent role in shaping Biden’s economic policy at a time when many Americans list high energy costs as one of their top concerns.” The Senate Banking Committee “will vote Thursday on Bernstein’s nomination. If confirmed, Bernstein will oversee the three-member council, which is tasked with advising the president on ‘economic policies that advance the interests of the American people.’” Gas prices were $3.61 last week. Does Bernstein still think they’re too low? After all, climate change is still going to kill us all at any minute, so the American people must be made to pony up some more dough and all get bicycles to save the planet, right?
Biden regime apparatchiks have revealed the game that is being played before. Back in March 2022, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded to skyrocketing gas prices by asserting airily that Americans could simply go electric: “Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people as well. Last month, we announced a $5 billion investment to build out a nationwide electric vehicle charging network so that people from rural to suburban to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV.” And Pete wasn’t alone.
Around the same time, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Michael Regan boasted, “We’re pressing the accelerator to reach a zero-emissions future sooner than most people thought.” Nothing presses the accelerator to reach a zero-emissions future more effectively than gas prices rising so high that driving a car powered on fossil fuels is simply too expensive. And remember, back in 2020, Old Joe Biden promised during a presidential debate that he would “transition away from the oil industry.”
Related: Biden EPA to Propose New Emissions Rules that Could Push 67% of New Car Sales to Be EVs by 2032
Old Joe delivered right away, shutting down the Keystone Pipeline, placing a moratorium on oil leases on federal property, suspending some existing drilling leases, restricting fracking, placing onerous financial regulations on the oil industry, and more. It looks as if Biden’s handlers will do anything but relieve the plight of the American people, the plight that they themselves created. If they did ease up on their restrictions on the domestic oil industry and restart work on the Keystone Pipeline, they would face the wrath of the far-Left greens who constitute the great bulk of their base, and it is clear that Biden’s handlers will do anything but cross them. Instead, they’re using the manufactured crisis as an opportunity to try to foist their green agenda on the American people, while we have no choice but to go along.
From the standpoint of the Biden regime, then, it’s clear that Jared Bernstein is absolutely right: gas prices are too damn low. The administration is pedal-to-the-metal on its zero-emissions agenda, and with gas rapidly, steadily, and inexorably too expensive to purchase, we will all be greens before too long. After all, the line between abject poverty and environmental consciousness has always been exceedingly thin.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member