If there’s a bigger lie than this, I can’t fathom what it
might be. I mean, if you’re going to lie about history you better hope all your
sycophant bitches have very short……memories. Case in Point: Interior Secretary Zinke, claiming
Trump has “reduced prices of fuel 40%’ is so off the rails that a sane individual
would consider having him committed. One of two scenarios is probable: the
first, Zinke just said what he said knowing it was false, hoping the faithful wouldn’t
notice, or The second and more probable, He’s such a devoted fan boy that he
assumes that if Trump claims it, it must be true. Here is the data (Remember - Facts?)
Between 2008-2012, gas prices climbed to a high of (avg.
nationwide) about 3:37 per gallon. (yeah, I know some places were higher, but
some were lower as well.) As an aside, Newt Gingrich, for the brief period that
any sane American considered him possibly presidential, claimed that, if elected,
Barack Obama would “push gasoline prices to over $10 per gallon.” That is a
direct quote. Michelle Bachman (equally unbalanced) claimed an Obama “stranglehold”
on energy. Along the way she omitted to mention that gasoline was just over
$3.00 per gallon average in 2008 while “W” was still POTUS.
In any event,
for the first several years of the Obama Administration, gas was higher in
price, but the big drop began in the first year of his second term and
continued downward to just barely over 2004 lows by 2016. In fact, the average
price of gasoline has increased by 10% under the current administration. Zinke
credits the 40% Obama decrease to Trump. He is a liar.
Now for a bit
more real perspective, recalling, please, that I only deal in facts. In 1928,
the price of gasoline, adjusted for 2015 inflation (a fair comparison) was
about $ 2.45 per gallon. Since then average nationwide price per gallon has
fluctuated above and below that figure. With a low in 1998 (again all these are
adjusted to 2015 relative numbers) of about $1.50, G.W. Bush took office and (actually
unrelated as gas prices really are) prices began to climb, reaching a high of
around $3.60 per gallon in 2008. Bush
still at the wheel, the housing bubble collapse and petroleum industry efforts,
albeit brief, triggered measures which dropped prices for the short term to
around $2.50 once more.
Economic woes continued, and gas prices crept
back up to a high in 2013 of about $3.75, peaked and began a precipitous decline
in Obama’s second term. By 2016, gas was at $2.16 a gallon, its lowest retail
price since 2003 and actually in constant 2015 dollars, lower than at any time
in the previous twelve years. For a different way of considering the saga of fuel
pricing: In 2016, Gasoline prices, adjusted for CPI index (inflation) were
about the same price as in 1927 and cheaper than during the Great Depression. Gasoline
has actually been costlier during the following periods, 1932-41, 1979-86, and
as mentioned above, 2004-2012. Gas has increased by about 10% during Trump’s
first year, not decreased by the ludicrous 40% Zinke claims. What is troubling
is the fact that there are those who read and believe without questioning and
are impervious to reason and fact.
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