Joe Biden flew to Iowa recently to tout his plan to sell more ethanol to lower gasoline prices. Unfortunately for America, a scant percentage of the nation’s gas stations and vehicles can sell or use mixes of gasoline/ethanol with portions of ethanol higher than 10%. And don’t get me started about the destruction ethanol does to marine engines—a boater’s nightmare. Tim Smart reports at U.S. News & World Report:
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden traveled to Iowa to tout his administration’s latest effort to lower the cost of gasoline: lifting a ban on the use of 15% ethanol in fuels during the summer.
It is a modest step that experts say will shed a few pennies off the cost of gasoline, as ethanol is cheaper than gas.
But the move was as much politics as it was economics. Earlier in the day, the government reported that inflation had risen at an annual rate of 8.5% in March, higher than expected and at a level last seen in 1981. The White House on Monday warned the number would be “extraordinarily elevated” in an effort to get in front of the damaging news.
At the Iowa stop, Biden also pointed to his decision to unlock 1 million barrels of oil a day from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve as evidence he is tackling the issue of high gas prices.
“I’m doing everything within my power, by executive orders, to bring down the prices and address the Putin price hike,” Biden said, referring to the invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin in late February.
But no amount of sloganeering or actions that may cut the price by a small amount will undo the economic – and political damage – that inflation is doing to the country and the fortunes of Democrats as they approach the critical November midterm elections.
“When a working mom, like mine growing up, is forced to make the impossible choice of putting another gallon in the tank or buying what she needs to feed her family, she wants leadership, not finger pointing,” Sen. Rick Scott, who heads the Republican’s reelection effort in the Senate, said in a statement Wednesday.
“I hear it every week from families in my state,” the junior senator from Florida said. “Floridians are SICK AND TIRED of watching Blame-Game-Biden duck responsibility for the crisis he has created.”
“This week’s CPI and PPI reports prove that Biden’s reckless tax-and-spend agenda has been a disastrous failure,” Scott added, referencing the March consumer price and producer price index reports. “The president can cast blame all he wants, but he can’t hide from the truth and Florida families don’t believe his lies.”
Polls confirm the toll inflation is taking on Biden and his party, even as the price of oil has fallen and average gas prices are down 25 cents from mid-March. Experts attribute that to global increases in production as well as the announcement of releases from U.S. reserves and those of other countries, along with market adjustments to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Action Line: Americans are furious at Biden and the economic destruction wrought by his administration. You can see their anger in my monthly RAGE Gauge.
