Biden is Not at Fault for Higher Gas Prices...Yet
At dinner a GOP rabble rouser friend began his Biden bashing with, “All I know is I was paying $1.75 a gallon for gas when Trump was president and now I’m paying $4 a gallon.” In response to any argument to the contrary, the dinner protagonist repeated his claim in a louder voice. This went on above the restaurant’s din until he adjusted today’s current price at the pump to “almost $5 a gallon.”
It turns out the lowest gas price nationally during Trump’s four years was $1.94 in April 2020 during the depths of the COVID lockdown. Nevada’s gas taxes and fees are the 5th highest in the country at 50.48 cents a gallon, according to the Tax Foundation. This does not include the 18.4 cent per gallon federal excise tax. Nevadans never paid $1.94 a gallon during the Trump administration, let alone the claimed $1.75.
Gas prices increased considerably during the last few months of the Trump regime and have continued during Biden’s term. Why? That annoying economics thing, supply and demand. Americans are driving more since the pandemic has abated, like, for instance, to work. Vehicle miles driven has nearly doubled from a low of just over 160 billion miles in April 2020 to 290 billion in July of this year.
On the supply side, Hurricane Ida shut down offshore rigs in the gulf this year. Business Insider reports, “as of late September, oil stored at Cushing, Oklahoma, one of the main crude depots in the US, was down 40% from the start of the year.”
My friend might have pointed out that the president has suspended new oil and gas leasing and drilling permits for federal land and water after squashing the XL pipeline project. Sure, these actions will hike the price of oil and in turn prices at the pump--in ten years or so.
The ex-president’s friends in the middle east have a lot to say over the supply and price of oil.
“The oil markets react to moves by OPEC that quickly impact oil supplies, not to actions that may impact oil supplies in the long run — at a time we don’t know what oil demand will be,” writes Robert Rapier in Forbes.
Looking at gas prices back to 1994, the president in office with the lowest prices was Bill Clinton. Trump’s pump prices were similar to prices during George W. Bush’s second term.
Rapier wrote a piece in the spring absolving Biden of any blame for increased gas prices. He writes that he continues to be badgered by “men who are angry that Joe Biden is in the White House” who write to him and say, “Even an idiot can see that Biden is the one who drove up gasoline prices.”
I feel your pain Robert.
