Isn’t it grand that, just perhaps — and for three whole months — gas may only cost slightly less than twice what it used to? Well, maybe. Assuming the cost of the gas, itself, does not triple by then.
Such is the beneficence of President Joe Biden. That is what happens when you reduce the supply of something for which there is great demand while at the same time increasing the supply of the money we’re forced to use to buy it, thereby devaluing its purchasing power.
C’mon, man!
Now — well, for three months — it will cost us 18.4 cents less per gallon to buy because the president is proposing to hold in abeyance the federal gas tax. The “relief” will be even more munificent — for three whole months! — if you have to buy diesel, which is taxed at 24.4 cents per gallon.
Huzzah…
It is almost exactly like the old saying about the mobster who breaks your leg but gives you a set of crutches — and expects you to be grateful for this act of kindness.
A closer example is that of Stalin’s chicken.
According to this story, Stalin was asked to explain why the people he ruled didn’t resist; why so many were seemingly … grateful to the tyrant for the pittance he gave them — after first having taken away everything away from them. He is said to have grabbed a chicken that was milling about near his feet and roughly plucked it, leaving it nearly unfeathered and shivering. Whereupon he reached in his pocket for a few crumbs of food, which the chicken gratefully ate up.
This is how these politicians see us.
And see themselves, too.
Ironically, the gas (and diesel) tax are arguably the least oppressive of taxes in that they are both anonymously paid as well as voluntarily paid, at least insofar as the individual motorist is concerned. Certainly, the cost of the tax paid by truckers and other commercial operators is folded into the cost we pay for their transportation services. But — relative to what the cost of gas and diesel were before Biden caused their prices to more than double — the cost of the tax is trivial.
In part because the cost of things like food was manageable. Which it was, because the cost of producing it — and transporting it — was, too. And in part because our dollars bought 15 percent more than they do now.
Consider that it was less than two years ago that a gallon of unleaded regular cost about $2.25 in most parts of the country — including tax. Certainly, the combined taxes — federal and state, amounting to more than 50 cents of the cost of a gallon of gas in states such as California — were hugely regressive, the term that Leftist things like to bandy about when pretending to be “concerned” about the burdens of government carried by the working and middle classes they used to pretend to “care” about.
That is to say, the cost of the taxes relative to the cost of the fuel was disproportionately high when a gallon of gas cost about $2.25 and the burden weighed heaviest on those with the least means to pay it; i.e., the working and middle classes the Left has stopped even pretending to care about in favor of genitally disfigured “queens” named Ze.
But the cost of the gas — and diesel — was manageable, even with all those taxes.
It was only two years ago that a working or middle-class person could fill up the 15-gallon tank of the typical family car for about $34, including taxes. If they filled up once a week, as most working and middle-class drivers generally do, they were spending about $136 each month, including all those taxes — of which the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon only amounted to about $2.80 of the total cost of 15 gallons of gas, at the pre-Biden price of about $2.25 per gallon.
Now, thanks to the president, the same 15 gallons cost us around $75 (at about $5 per gallon). The cost of the tax — which is the same — is now much less regressive than it used to be.
As opposed to the cost of the gas, itself.
But Biden thinks he will reap thanks — perhaps to be expressed at the ballot box come November — for “saving” people about $2.80 per 15-gallon fill-up, “reducing” the cost of that fill-up from about $75 to about $72.
Thanks, Joe!
But only for three months — assuming Joe manages to persuade the other Democrats in Congress to go along with his plan.
Given how much the Democrats “care” about the working and middle-class people, it is hugely unlikely this “relief” will come to pass. After all, it would set a terrible precedent. People might get used to “saving” about $3 every time they buy $75 of gas.
They’d be better served by asking why they are paying $75 for gas that used to cost them $34 — plus tax — less than two years ago.
