The moment Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden and his brain trust came up with #PutinPriceHike.
That ranks up there with “Ultra-MAGA,” but I digress.
From the outset, we have maintained that while it may contribute a small percentage of the increases in gasoline, the overall premise that this accounted for the totality of the higher prices was false.
In fact, it was not even true that it accounted for the continued rise in pricing.
It’s About Time
After allowing Biden to push this narrative for two full months, economists finally got around to fact-checking Biden’s claim.
To no one’s surprise, it failed.
On average, Russian oil accounted for about five percent of our total usage.
Prior to the invasion, the price of gasoline had gone up by 55 percent, averaging $3.51 per gallon on the day of the invasion.
Joe Biden ordered the release of our reserves at a slow trickle.
As it turns out, that trickle accounts for about five percent of our daily usage, so the Russian impact, was, in essence, offset by the release of the reserves.
Yet, here we are, two months later, with a national overage now over $4.50 per gallon.
John Cochrane, a Hoover Institution senior fellow, stated, “The ‘Putin’s price hike’ is laughable – and you can tell because no matter how hard they try to advance this particular little bit of propaganda absolutely nobody but White House spokespeople use the word.”
William Ruger, the President of the American Institute for Economic Research, added, “The administration wants to blame anybody but itself for the challenges of the American economy. [‘Putin’s price hike’ is] a good talking point because there’s a sliver of truth in it.”
David Kreutzer, an Institute for Energy Research senior economist, explained a much larger contributing factor, stating, “At least early on in the price run-up, drilling activity was comparatively muted. Cancelled leases, cancelled pipelines, proposed regulations to penalize lenders that financed fossil-energy businesses all dampened production responses that would be putting oil and gas on the market today.”
Numerous other economists broke this down even further in the Daily Caller report, which I would highly encourage you to read.
This price surge is on Biden and his idiotic policies, nobody else.
Source: Daily Caller
