Nearly four years after the Biden green agenda sent the price of gasoline past the $5 mark, leftists have found their religion on high prices – or so they say.
The Trump administration "needs to stop its crazed policies that cause so much economic pain," declared former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. "The American people are paying the price" for "Donald Trump's war of choice in Iran," added former Vice President Kamala Harris.
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As America enters a record-breaking summer driving season and with a midterm election looming shortly thereafter, the overheated political rhetoric from opponents of the Trump administration is predictable.
Sadly, missing from the conversation is the wisdom of the economist Thomas Sowell who observed: "there are no solutions, only trade-offs."
For example, during the Biden years, climate hysteria was the problem. High energy prices were the necessary "trade-off" to save the planet.
President Joe Biden described climate change as an "existential threat." The world was going to end by 2031 "if we don’t address climate change," according to New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the ringleaders of the "Green New Deal" climate legislation said in 2019. "We’re way behind, and we’re not going to catch up," warned U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry.
What caught up was the common sense of the American people. Already battling generational inflation of the Biden years, they saw through California’s EV mandates, New York’s bans on gas stoves, the federal government’s pausing of new oil and gas leases, to name a few.
In 2024, more than 77 million voters flocked to a candidate who vowed to "drill baby drill" and unleash American energy.
Upon taking office, Trump acted, declaring a national energy emergency and undoing the Biden era mandates that shackled the industry.
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It was no coincidence that gas prices fell to a four-year low last October.
Then came the conflict in Iran. Trump followed through on his long-held conviction that Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Instability ensued, especially regarding the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows.
The trade-off has been a spike in gas prices, the impact of which cannot be dismissed. People are hurting, as they were four years ago.
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As Trump told reporters May 19, "I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. It won’t be much longer,"
Is the elimination of an evil regime that has been terrorizing America, our allies and the world for generations worth it? That’s for the American people to decide.
A solution, a trade-off.
Contrast that objective with the climate cult, whose credibility suffered another blow when the United Nations walked back some of its wildest predictions from its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This is not some harmless mea culpa from a minor authority. It influenced policies and ways of thinking, large and small. AOC’s Green New Deal legislation referenced a report from the IPCC.
The climate "crisis" had as many as four in 10 young people thinking twice about having children, according to one global survey. The fearmongers used the scare tactics to push countries away from more steady forms of energy like oil and gas toward untested and unreliable solar and wind, leaving nations exposed during periods of global instability, such as the war between Russia and Ukraine.
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Because America is blessed with incredible natural resources, the pain was not as severe for us then, nor is it now. Even for the week beginning May 18, the average cost for a gallon of gasoline in France and the United Kingdom was closer to $9 – roughly double the U.S.
Small consolation, perhaps, to families that hit the roads Memorial Day weekend, but important context all the same.
In five months, American voters will render their judgment on the tradeoff between higher gasoline prices and ridding the world of an actual existential threat. Give them the facts and they will make the right decision.
But beware of those loud voices raising holy hell about a "problem" they turned a blind eye to when it was in pursuit of their agenda. The green agenda made no sense then and doesn’t now. That’s a trade-off worth considering as the country elects its next generation of leaders.