Biden’s Gas Tax Holiday Is a Gimmick — Just Ask Obama

BUCK: So, the federal gas tax holiday. Well, let’s just start with this. Even the gas CEOs who usually… You’ll notice they don’t usually get into the political fray because a lot of regulation. They just want to keep pumping their oil, doing their business. I know there’s obviously lobbyists and such, but they don’t speak out against politicians that frequently. The Chevron CEO has basically said Biden doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about.

Here is Biden’s response. Play clip 1.

BUCK: Does he really think it’s a time for jokes, Clay? People can’t afford gas. The gas CEO is saying the Biden regime is clownish, and Biden thinks it’s funny.

CLAY: Here’s what’s going on” The Democrats know that nothing else matters. All the distractions that they’re trying to throw up surrounding January 6th, the potential impact as we go forward surrounding whatever the Supreme Court does with Roe v. Wade, all of it is a big distraction that is not taking away attention from 8.6% inflation and how angry every single person is when they go to pump their gas and it’s $5 a gallon.

That is — every single time — the essence of this, and the problem with the gas tax holiday is, it’s not going to do anything other than provide a short-term show. And the biggest issue the Biden administration has is all of the oil and gas companies know that the Biden administration is 100% opposed to everything that they do and every aspect of their business. So take it outside of gas.

If you knew that there was a government that hated what your business was and they were suddenly desperate for your product because there was a midterm election coming up, would you invest billions of dollars in production when you knew that as soon as they possibly could, they would cut your legs out from underneath you and what was a profitable business would rapidly decline in profitability?

‘Cause remember, Buck, it wasn’t very long ago that we were talking about gas prices going negative. Do you remember that? Like in March and April of 2020 when everybody was supposed to stay at home and all this oil was being delivered the United States, and the price of a barrel of crude oil actually went into negative territory because there was nowhere to store it and there was no consumption.

That’s what they’re afraid of. They’re afraid of creating a situation where they’re drastically oversupplying a market that is trying to cut the legs out of the business that they are in the middle of. And so there’s no trust, there’s no reciprocity here, there’s no rapprochement, there is no relationship. Because, ultimately, Democrats want oil and gas — anything other than so-called clean energy — to vanish and to vanish forever.

And widen is trying to make the oil and gas companies responsible for the price of oil and gas, when if he had allowed the full fruition of our production from the first place, he wouldn’t be going on bended knee to Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iran begging for them to increase production so that we can replace what we’re losing in Russia.

BUCK: They don’t have any plans, folks. Not really. At this point, it is down to gimmicks. You have to wonder at what faze will Biden just decide to send Biden stimulus checks — even though we’re going through a terrible period of inflation — to effectively buy off as many voters as possible at the very end here. And they don’t have it both ways here he read. You can’t have the Biden regime talking about a move that will bring down gas prices and Biden doing everything he can on gas prices, but it’s not his fault that gas prices are high, right?

Well, no one’s saying it’s all his fault. Nothing had a macroeconomic level is ever entirely the sitting president’s fault, but has he made it worse? Has he made the wrong moves? Yes. Clearly. Obviously. Everybody, including the CEOs of all the fossil fuel energy companies but also everybody who’s had to pump gas for the last six months knows, yeah.

This administration has made things more painful, more difficult, and you still, Clay… I love this. You’ve got the energy secretary. Jennifer Granholm can’t help herself. John Kerry can’t help himself. They’re going around… Here you go. Here’s Granholm saying (summarized), “Yeah, look things are tough, but what a great opportunity — while you can’t afford to drive to work — to transition to green energy!” Play 7.

CLAY: The $64,000 electric vehicle solution to $5 gas is maybe the most Marie Antoinette-esque move of any modern political party during our lives. Remember Debbie Stabenow, the senator from Michigan, bragging about how she had driven from Michigan to D.C. and she just kept driving past in her brand-new electric vehicle all of the high gas prices?

And ultimately what’s wild here, Buck, is Barack Obama actually pointed this out some time ago, that everything about a gas tax holiday was a gimmick. He said it back in 2008, and I would imagine there’ll be a lot of people playing this because obviously Joe Biden was the vice president of Barack Obama at the time that this was said — and guess what? Obama, at least on this scenario, was a hundred percent right. Listen.

BUCK: Wow.

CLAY: It’s a gimmick, Buck. I would love to hear Joe Biden actually directly questioned on this. Of course, it rarely happens, but, “Hey, your former president said a gas tax holiday was a gimmick. Why was he wrong?” I would love to hear Joe Biden’s response to that.

BUCK: And they also know, Clay, where this is all heading. A Biden administration that has a Republican majority in the House and even a slim majority in the Senate isn’t going to get any major legislation through. You’re gonna hear a lot of class welfare stuff and obviously — depending the Republican candidate — there will be a real focus on January 6th, all the things that we can expect.

But then it really turns into politically this country, after the midterms, is gonna shift right into presidential election mode. There’s not gonna be some long holiday. There’s not gonna be a honeymoon period of a year in between. We’re gonna be shifting right towards. And at that point, with Biden not able to point to any achievements and with all the pain that we’re seeing economically in this country.

Never mind all the other dysfunction that we talk about: Illegal immigration worst it’s ever been, violent crime the worst it’s ever been in a number of cities — and nationwide ,the worst it’s been in decades. All these things just point in one direction, and that is for the one thing that Democrats and the apparatus are really responsive to: The imminent loss of power, the massive loss of authority. That’s where they’re heading.

And so you’re already seeing the desperation, right? I mean, come on. A gas tax holiday is desperate. Honestly, Biden even tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, it’s not really what it’s for. Now, politicians play games with things like this. But that’s supposed to be in the case of an embargo or a war. It’s not just, “Gas price a little high. Let’s buy off the voters a little bit.

“Let’s tell ’em I’m doing something.” The thing that they could do is encourage not just exploration, not just refining. Encourage fossil fuel domestic production and say, “We’re not going to stand in your way this year or in four years or in 10 years.” We understand this is where the economy is. They ideologically cannot do that. That is where the rubber meets the road.

CLAY: “Drill, baby, drill!” I remember someone distilling the question of what we need to do when it came to oil and gas to that, and that is exactly what should be done. But you’re right. When your entire party is predicated on the idea of climate change as a destructive force that must be resolved, then the Green New Deal energy policies mean you can’t actually solve an energy crisis that has emerged and is continuing to grow and is probably going to lead to higher gas prices throughout course of the summer.

And, Buck, the discussion here is about a gas tax holiday until September. Do you really think they would end it in September, or do you think they would extend it to — oh, I don’t know — November 10th, maybe through Thanksgiving? Oh, we’re gonna give everybody a little bit of a break? And I can’t even wait. We’ll have to talk about this as it gets closer to July 4th more in earnest. Remember last year when the Biden White House put out the statement that you were saving 16¢ on your Fourth of July barbecue over the year before, thanks the Biden economic policies?

BUCK: Those pork ribs tasted so much better with the two bits that I was saving or whatever, the 12-1/2¢ cents.

CLAY: The 16¢ that you were saving.