[August]

Joe Biden gets a close shave from Occam's razor

NOVEMBER 18, 2021 11:00 PM
BY HUGO GURDON
Joe Biden’s decision to order the Federal Trade Commission to investigate high gasoline prices and see if Big Oil is manipulating them prompts an ironic chuckle, for it is perfectly emblematic of this presidency. It is calculated to suggest concern about a widely felt problem without actually giving two hoots about it except insofar as it might do serious electoral damage to the party of the Left.

Since their drubbing in the Virginia governor’s race and elsewhere on Nov. 2, panicky Democrats have scrambled to create the illusion that they’re still in touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans. Biden touts his Build Back Better — or is it Bankrupt? — welfare plan as a “blue-collar blueprint” for prosperity. Translation: Hey, little people, I’ve got your back. The hapless veep nods toward government’s need to hear everyone’s voice. Translation: We don’t think you’re deplorables.

Uh-huh.

And now, because everyone notices and dislikes rising pump prices, Biden wants to persuade us saps to disregard Occam’s razor and believe corporate baddies are to blame, not his mismanagement and cheek-by-jowl adherence to the Left’s anti-energy agenda.

The reality is that Biden and his minions have waged war on domestic energy producers since his first day as president. Even now, he is doing his best to foist a comptroller of the currency onto the nation who explicitly calls for the ruin of oil companies, saying she wants them to “go bankrupt.”

Prices are soaring because demand outstrips supply, and several of the reasons can be laid at Biden’s door. He’s weakened the supply chain, discouraged domestic production in part by raising costs, and failed to persuade Russia, the Saudis, and others to bail him out with more output. (He begged them to increase production — another national embarrassment — which would substitute dirty overseas output for the world’s most regulated and cleanest production here at home. So much for concern about greenhouse gas emissions).

The problem for Biden is that sleight of hand, extra PR, and frantic communication efforts don’t fix underlying problems, as the Washington Examiner's Byron York recently noted . The administration can spin like a dreidel — goodness knows, it’s trying — but spin doesn’t change the facts.

Obscuring the real causes of rising prices won’t make prices come down or people feel them less. Saying inflation is a luxury concern and anyway is only temporary won’t make it so. Saying another $4 trillion of spending, much of it with borrowed money, will reduce price acceleration won’t achieve that end.

So, as you drive to join family members to celebrate Thanksgiving this week, you’ll know who to thank for the extra $20 you must pay to fill your gas tank each time. When you sit down to dinner, you’ll know who to thank for the fact that your favorite foodstuffs were out of stock.

Yet, for all that, there are real reasons, even in today’s politics, to be thankful. One is that voters have already seen through the Democrats’ spin and are signaling that change is a-coming. Another is that presidential terms don’t last longer than four years.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/r...m-occams-razor