On the way home from dinner the other night, I looked at the gas prices at the gas station I frequent to fill up my beast of a car. My sticker-shocked voice screeched, “Three dollars and fifty cents for premium?! Three dollars for regular?!”
There are two reasons for this. One is the annual switch to summer-grade gasoline, which is more expensive to produce. The other is higher crude oil prices. As of this writing, the benchmark WTI Crude price is more than $71, a 40 percent increase over the past year. Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for Oil Price Information Service, told CBS News MoneyWatch last month, “This will be the most expensive driving season since 2014.” Another report from Market Watch notes, “If [oil] prices keep rising, gas could top $4 a gallon in some areas of the country for the first time since 2012.”
When President Trump was a private citizen, he was rather vocal in his blame of then-President Barack Obama. Before a big holiday driving weekend in 2012, Trump tweeted, “Gas prices are about to hit a record high during the Labor Day weekend. @BarackObama could have stopped this.” No president “could have stopped this,” as Trump is finding out. Two months later, the Queens-born Manhattan builder tweeted, “Gas prices are at crazy levels–fire Obama!”
By that insane standard, Trump should be fired now. Not that I would have a problem with that.
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