OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis took aim once more at the Biden administration as Floridians and Americans around the country continue paying more for just about everything they need, especially at gas and diesel pumps.
Inflation has continued soaring in the era of President Joe Biden, with fuel, food, housing, and building costs skyrocketing for months. Supply chain issues have also become commonplace, the most recent evidence of which is a severe shortage of baby formula.
But prices at the pump hurt nearly all Americans as most drive for their jobs and for other functions of daily life.
In his comments, the Republican governor lashed out at Biden and his administration for its economic policies and obvious disdain for fossil fuels and energy independence.
The Daily Wire notes also that the regime is spending heavily, which many economists say is dramatically contributing to inflation:
In 2021, Biden pushed for and got a huge $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, then later got a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. At the end of March 2022, Biden proposed a $5.8 trillion budget, and last week the Biden administration announced they had canceled three oil and gas leases, including a mammoth one in Alaska.
“People are getting actually hammered with gas prices and the overall inflation is attributable more than anything to Biden’s policy of printing trillions and trillions of dollars like they have done since he has gotten into office,” DeSantis said Sunday, noting the record-high gas prices around the country.
DeSantis was responding to Fox News host Dan Bongino, who noted: “We’re seeing record gas prices, people are really struggling. We have a lot of people in Florida who are on fixed incomes down here. And yet this week we learned they canceled oil and gas leases.”
Last Wednesday, Biden’s Department of the Interior killed the potential to drill for oil in over 1 million acres in the Cook Inlet in Alaska, informing CBS News that the cancellation stemmed from a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area” for the decision to “not move forward.” The DOI killed two leases under consideration in the Gulf of Mexico area because of “conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.”
“Well, Dan, the energy policy is intentional,” DeSantis alleged. “They are intentionally reducing our ability to produce oil and gas here in the United States. They will beg OPEC for more oil, they’ll beg Maduro for more oil. I guess Maduro’s oil isn’t global warming but American [oil] is.”
“I mean it is nonsense; it is ideology but it is very destructive,” he added. “People are getting actually hammered with gas prices and the overall inflation is attributable more than anything to Biden’s policy of printing trillions and trillions of dollars like they have done since he has gotten into office. … He was warned by Larry Summers and other Democratic economists that if you do this, you are gonna spark inflation.”
Summers, who served as former President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary, warned Biden in May 2021 about massive spending: “The sense of serenity and complacency being projected by the economic policymakers, that this is all something that can easily be managed, is misplaced.”
“And that’s a tax, Dan, on every single American,” DeSantis noted of the concerning levels of inflation seen since Biden took office. “We’ve got people that may be making seven, eight percent more year-over-year, but if the costs of everything to live are up 15 to 20 percent, and they are, the inflation is understating it when you look at the things that really matter.
“So I think it’s been absolutely a failure in policy, and here’s the thing: Reverse course,” DeSantis asserted. “Start producing more energy here in the United States. He could very easily do that, but yet what does he do, as you just pointed out? They are still canceling oil and gas leases. They don’t want us to be energy independent, and they don’t care if you suffer at the pump.”
