I Can't Hold Back Any Longer
Look, I have tried to give President Biden the benefit of the doubt. I understand he is getting on in years and those years may not have been as kind to him as others. I do get that. I have brought up his numerous mistakes and miscalculations and will admit, every President has had his share of them. It’s part of the job, make a decision and that decision goes south, in a hurry. It is not the hardest job in the World for no reason. I probably have cut him more slack than I would a younger man because I have great respect for the elderly but after yesterday’s jumble of bumble, I can’t let this go anymore.
Yesterday’s “Inflation” speech was anything but. I did not hear one concrete plan other than that his agenda and his policies will cure inflation. Oh wait, he did mention releasing 240 million (or was it 260 million?) barrels of oil from our reserves to “Bring down the cost of gas”. Ok, that was clear, sort of. How much oil on a daily basis? He mentioned that this will help with World supply, but does that mean we may be exporting some of this oil out of country? Could something so clear yet be so not so clear in one sentence? The work and results are in the details and once again, he had no handle on the details.
Forget for the moment he bumbled an entire speech, which says something right there. Biden talked about the good the Democrats will do and the bad the Republicans will do. It sounded like a campaign speech at points and maybe it was since the Democrats are potentially going to lose control of at least one house of Congress in November. He was trying to give them some momentum but his poor presentation and lack of any substantial new proposals will hurt them more than it will help them.
The fact that in some ways he was still trying to defend his anti fossil fuel policies shows that he has zero interest in bringing down the cost of oil. Getting us ready for an all electric future is going to be painful and the American people are feeling that pain right now and guess what? Americans don’t like it and as their bills rise even more, they will like it even less. Like almost all of the Administrations policies, it is not well thought out and has no understanding of the impacts, present and future.
Just to backtrack on this point. I am not against the transition to a more environmentally sound policy as far as energy is concerned but I also know that no matter what these proponents believe, we will need fossil fuels (and a lot of it) for the foreseeable future. Power plants that will power this electric future will need to burn something. Biofuels, impossible by any measure. Nuclear, I am all for it but the cost, the pushback, and time it will take works against it. Solar, please stop with this. Wind, again, it isn’t the answer. So, we will need oil and natural gas for generations and that is a fact. The administration wants to cater to a small minority of loud voices declaring this to be the only way. It is not.
There are so many points in this speech that can (and will be) torn apart it really borders on embarrassment and while I love to tear things apart, I won’t. I will say this though; His assertion that the rally in oil prices started when Russia invaded Ukraine is dead wrong and the biggest load of crap the administration is carrying in their Depends right now. Oil prices started rising the day after the administration shutdown the Keystone Pipeline and made it clear that all that free range fracking was going to grind to a halt. Look at a chart of WTI from January of 2020 till now. Oil was already expensive (by historical standards) when the invasion happened. The invasion did not help for sure but this momentum was in place way before, so putting the blame elsewhere is blatantly false.
You have an opportunity to outline legitimate plans to help curb inflation and you say next to nothing and what you do say has no shot at curbing inflation. The point is, they don’t know. They have some of the brightest Democratic minds in the country working there and they have no clue. I am no politician but this to me, would be the time to put together a non-partison group of the smartest business people, economists, anyone with expertise and sit them down and tell them to give him some ideas.
Every crisis this country has ever faced, every President has asked for help from intelligent people with no regard for their politics (Even Obama brought in Republicans to help with the financial crisis in 2008). This President just can’t bring himself to allow contrarian opinions in the room, and that, my friends, is why we are going through what we are going through.