The price of gas continues to soar in this era of Bidenflation. It is getting so bad, some experts are warning that we could see prices as outrageously high as $7 per gallon in some parts of the country.
The current high prices are not new, either. Gasoline has been on the rise for seven straight weeks, according to GasBuddy data reported by Fox Carolina.
“Veteran energy strategist Dan Dicker said he can see gas prices going up to $5 a gallon. Dicker said some areas might even get to $6.50 or $7,” Fox Carolina added.
GasBuddy noted that the national average is almost twenty cents a gallon higher than a month ago and is nearly a dollar higher than one year ago.
Worse, per gallon prices have already nearly doubled in just two years. Gas was only $2.17 a gallon average at the end of 2020. And it is no coincidence that 2020 was the last full year we had a president who wanted the U.S. to be energy independent.
But already, in deep blue states, gas is getting perilously close to double those prices seen in 2020. In deep blue Illinois, for instance, gas now averages $3.60 a gallon for regular (nearly $4.50 for premium), while the national average is $3.50, according to traveler assistance group AAA.
It is even worse in California where the average price per gallon for regular is an unheard of $4.75 — more than a dollar higher than the national average!
Left-wing news sources continue to lay the blame for these skyrocketing prices at the door of Russia’s threatened invasion of Ukraine.
Indeed, the Associated Press is only worried over the high costs of gasoline because it will likely have a political impact for Biden and the Democrats in the 2022 elections, which are only seven months away.
“Americans are already dismayed by Inflation at a 40-year high, and Biden is warning that gas prices could get higher if Russian President Vladimir Putin chooses to invade. It’s a recognition of Biden’s own risks ahead of the 2022 midterm elections: Inflation has become an albatross for Democrats despite the nation’s strong economic growth last year,” the Associated Press wrote last week.
But this is misleading. Gasoline has been rising since Biden took office, and the Russian threat to Ukraine was not great enough to impact gas prices when Biden entered the White House in January of last year.
Aside from international worries over the Russia/Ukraine issue, a major reason for the high price of gas is that Joe Biden has seriously undermined America’s energy sector.
Biden began systematically ending domestic energy production since the day he entered the White House. Indeed, on his first day he began issuing orders to shut down pipelines — such as the Keystone XL.
On the day Donald Trump left Washington, the U.S. was a net energy exporter for the first time in 75 years, meaning we had so much energy of all types that we could afford to sell it to foreigners after our own needs were met.
In less than a year, Biden reversed that status, and we are again a major importer of some sources of energy.
GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri blasted Biden for this needless situation.
“It is absolutely astronomical the price of gas and getting worse and why is that?” Sen. Hawley said, according to KTVO. “Because he (President Biden) canceled our energy independence. This is a guy who came right into office, shut down our pipelines, put thousands of Americans out of work, who were working in our energy sector and took us from being energy independent, a feat that took decades to accomplish to get to energy independence. He canceled it in the space of a year, and now we’re dependent on regimes like China and others for our energy and all matter of other goods.”
The high cost of travel, though, is nothing less than a tax on those least able to afford it. The middle and lower economic classes are already struggling thanks to the Bidenflation that is cutting deep into their wallets. But the incredibly high costs of gasoline is one of the worst hits yet.
Biden cannot directly control the price of gas, granted, but we have already seen that his policies set the stage for these rising prices. We know what works to keep gas prices low. Biden should stop toeing the line and pushing the extreme, anti-energy left’s agenda and do something now to help ease the burden on the American people.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.