President Joe Biden’s Fourth of July disconnect about saving 16 cents for a hot dog was good for a chuckle in 2021. Fast forward a year and there’s not a lot to laugh about anymore, as anyone getting ready to hit the road and pay five bucks a gallon to fill up can attest.
Background: Last July, the Biden White House was working very hard to push back on what we now know as the beginning of the worst inflation in a generation. On July 1, 2021, some poor communications staffer at 1600 Pennsylvania hit “send” on a tweet that then White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki surely thought was a mic drop moment.
So entangled in fighting the truth, Team Biden really thought a 16 cent drop in price was worthy of a presidential celebration. For added measure, just two weeks later, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen would declare any inflation as “transitory.” In her defense, the economy was transitioning, just not in the direction of their spin. It was moving downward, and fast, driven in large part by the Administration’s unceasing war against America’s energy producers.
As we prepare to make our nation’s independence in 2022, let’s take a short moment to remember all the times Biden and his team “misspoke” on the economy last year when they were telling us to trust them and not your own lying wallet. Call it Biden’s effort to declare independence from the truth.
The cost for the cookout that Biden celebrated last year has skyrocketed 17 percent higher. The price of ground beef is setting a new record for year-over-year increases. If Biden thought a “savings” of 16 cents was worth celebrating, how does he feel about an increase of about $10? Sadly, that’s not the only new record price our families will have to pay.
The price at the pump is historically high for the 4th of July this year and no pun-filled Tweet will help. Gas Buddy reports this Independence Day will come with the biggest price tag ever for the second-most traveled day of the season. It’s so bad that 70 percent of us are changing summer road trip plans. Apparently not enough American families have found that extra $60,000 for a Biden-blessed electric vehicle favored by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm or Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow.
While the prices we’re paying since last year have changed dramatically, the deflection defense offered by Biden is pathetically the same.
First, Biden ignored high gas prices, which began their steady uptick long before Vladimir Putin started causing problems in Ukraine. Then he blamed, in no particular order: Covid, oil companies, and of course Putin. The problem for Biden’s spin machine is that no one need to look further than American monthly oil production to see between March 2020 and March 2022, the United States is producing over 1 million barrels less every single day. Demonstrating their belief that appeasing the blue checks on Twitter trumps basic economic theory, the White House still wants us to believe #PutinsPriceHike is real. However, just like that extra ground beef for this year’s cookout, Americans aren’t buying it.
Heading into the holiday, Biden’s approval rating is less than 39 percent, with a disapproval at nearly 57 percent. In a highly divisive political environment, it appears more and more Americans are uniting behind the idea that the Biden presidency is failing. In response, the President took a break from his Delaware beach weekend to jet off to Europe to push more green energy.
The Fourth of July is a time to celebrate so much of what is great about our country. However, this year lurking behind every celebration of our nation’s Independence is a reminder of the consequences of surrendering our energy independence. The worst part was how avoidable the whole situation was as it is the result of poor policy making from the Biden Administration.
That’s something no tweet can fix.
Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future, a non-profit that advocates for America’s energy workers. You can find him on Twitter @larrybehrens or you can email him: larry@powerthefuture.com
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