Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Brandon's plan to reduce fuel prices

What a f'n idiot.



President Biden made a speech Wednesday, outlining his plan to lower gasoline prices at the pump for Americans. The plan includes four key points:

Congress should suspend the gasoline tax for 90 days; 18c per gallon for gasoline, 24c per gallon for diesel.
States should suspend State gasoline taxes, the national average State gas tax is 30c per gallon, according to the President.
Oil companies (XLE) should use profits to increase refining capacity.
Gasoline stations should pass along the decrease in oil prices to consumers.

Notably, none of these actions are within the President's control. However, given Democrat's control of Congress, the federal gas tax is likely to move forward in coming weeks. Many States have already suspended gasoline taxes, and more are likely to join, following the President's call to action.

The President noted that during the pandemic, many oil companies shuttered refining capacity. While true, many of those refineries were converted into bio-fuel processing plants, with significantly reduced capacity. However, the story of US refinery closures begins well before the pandemic, as the Department of Energy highlighted in its recently published Refinery Capacity Report. The report notes that since 1990, the US has shuttered 86 refineries totaling more than 5mb/d of capacity. Or more than a quarter of current operational capacity. Nevertheless, the President went onto say, "we should lower the price of electric vehicles, so we don't have to pay at the pump to begin with." A statement somewhat at odds with his proposal for the industry to invest billions of dollars expanding capacity.

The final piece of the puzzle, in President Biden's view, is for retailers to pass savings to consumers. Biden said, "to the companies running gas stations and setting those prices at the pump .. these are not normal times, bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the price you are paying for the product." Of the ~145,000 gas stations in the US, Exxon (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) own ~300, with the majority of the remainder owned by independent franchisees. The call from the President misses the fact that gasoline is sold on a wholesale market, to both US and international retailers. And the highly fragmented and competitive US gas station business has little control over the price of oil (USO) or gasoline.

The President closed by stating that rising prices are the fault of Putin, and that US energy policy had no impact on fuel prices preceding the historic release of strategic reserves. With industry leaders set to meet Energy Secretary Granholm Thursday, management teams will have an opportunity to voice their opinion. Both Chevron (CVX) and Exxon (XOM) have provided short and long-term solutions to the current energy crisis. Whether those solutions are implemented remains to be seen. However, barring constructive cooperation between industry and Washington, it's difficult to see energy prices falling dramatically in the near term.

four point plan

Yes, YOU dix this. Own it!

Too little and way too late to save.the midterms.

Drop the gas taxes, then tax something else to pay for roads. Look for a mileage tax. There's no way that we'll have a net drop in taxes, just a shift.

No fed gas tax good for NOTHING other than talking points!

You Go Brandon!

We have a supply issue - I'd contend that dropping the gas tax probably isn't going to increase demand (people are still driving and paying because they HAVE to - they're cutting elsewhere, not in fuel) but even superficially reducing price would increase demand against strained supply.

It's complete stupidity.

How about just getting rid of all income taxes - abolish the IRS so we can all afford to pay for gas - regardless of tax?

Can't wait until someone tries to permit a new refinery on US soil.......am sure Joe will push through the approvals right quick!

You can't declare war on the fossil fuel industry and say your goal is for them to go out of business and then complain that they don't help you out when your plan sucks.

Fugging Democrats want to lower taxes?😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

I dislike taxes as much as anyone, but we need roads and road maintenance. The price on that has to be going up like crazy based
on the use of petroleum products. Those prices are inevitably
tearing the bottom out of the budget as it stands. Budgets which
already leave us with less than great roads.


Anyone of us could find ways to cut waste and corruption in
those budgets, that ain't gonna happen.

Cutting taxes is a cousin to their handing out money.


"Here, let me make you feel good. Now you like me, right?"
As the pot gets hotter.

Get a grip y’all. This isn’t accidental. The liar in chief is following specific instructions. He at the behest of handlers is bent on destroying our freedom and nation. This is intentional.

Yes they are

Correct

Democrat vote buying.

Again.

Granholm was on TV saying exactly that - you need to invest and get more supply out so we can shut you down in 5-8 years. Special kind of stupid.

PREZACTLY!!! 😡

How about we suspend INCOME TAX for a year. That will have a much greater effect on everyone's wallet than $.18/gallon for 3 months.

Yep. I can’t imagine why oil companies aren’t bending over backwards to help him twist the knife that’s in their back.

And gas stations make very, VERY little at the pump. They make their profits from road trip snacks.

Don’t forget the unlegislated taxation that’s come in the form of inflation.


Spot on

Exactly.

With the Feds fuel tax being based on the gallon rather than the dollar they’ve probably already seen a real reduction in income as people try to drive less and the price per gallon has more than doubled. Most people have a set income with a paycheck minus whatever they have taken off of the top for a retirement fund with the rest being spent. With gas at $5 a gallon what’s saved in gas cost taxes will be spent somewhere else with a typical state tax of around 0.6 cents per dollar. A net gain for government at the state level and probably the Federal level too through increased commerce. That isn’t bad but the government by hook or by crook will still get “there’s.”

The special bonus they get doing a mileage tax is that they'll say they need a spyware device installed on every vehicle, to you know, keep track of your mileage.

And once we are all forced to buy electric cars, there will be no gas tax to fix the roads. But as you said, they'll tax something else....