Democrat Energy Policy Targets the Poor

In the last few days, through some slips of the tongue or brain by President Biden, it has become evident that our current energy mess is a designed crisis. It is designed to force us all into electric vehicles to satisfy the goal of changing the temperature of the earth by 1 ½ degrees in the next 100 years.

The idea is to subsidize wind and solar, and electric cars, and force up the price of traditional fuels so that you will be forced to switch to alternative energy, even though alternatives are far more expensive in a world of free competition.

They don’t want free competition. They want to favor their alternatives and punish those traditional sources that evolved naturally in the marketplace.

The purported reason is to fight “climate change.”

That’s right. Despite multiple other factors such as the tilt of the earth, undersea volcanic activity, above sea volcanic activity, natural fires, CO2 absorption rates, tectonic shifts in the earth’s plate, solar activity, seawater temperature, and countless other factors, politicians have taken on perhaps the most ambitious scheme ever devised by demagogues. Unable to house the homeless, cure the addicted, and even educate our children, being the gods they are, they are going to change the climate of the earth over the next century.

Rather than the less expensive and intrusive strategy of adapting to changes in the environment, they think they can change the climate. Forget that we can hardly correctly predict the weather two weeks out, these arrogant fools insist they can change the climate over 100 years.

You are just collateral damage in their grand quest to force all countries, except the big emitters like China and India, to do their bidding. But since they can’t control China or India, what they are doing is changing your standard of living, harming your life prospects, in a cause that will fail under their own theories. If they can’t stop China from emitting, what difference is your pain going to make?

This is the pain we are all feeling at the gas pump, the grocery store, and in our electric bills. And it is all going to get much worse.  Look at gas prices and electric prices in Germany, for example.

This pain will impact the poor most of all.

By starving oil and gas companies of capital and regulating them into oblivion, it is driving up the price of food. Literal starvation is likely in the poorest countries on earth.

But we can’t let what is good for humans (eating) get in the way of global climate change goals.

Even closer to home, we can see the effect of rising gas prices.

If you own a small business, employ household labor ranging from maids to lawn care, or need dishwashers and waiters, gasoline prices become a factor in employment opportunities.

Since by definition, most poor people own older cars (the US car fleet is now more than 12 years old on average, a record) than the average, many minivans and trucks of that era get around 20 miles per gallon. Working people need such vehicles.

If you make $15 to $20 per hour, and you live in Apache Junction, will you take a job that is in Glendale or Litchfield Park? You easily could be burning $25 to $50 a day in gas. That could be $500 to $1000 a month in gas.  And that is not the total cost of operating a vehicle.

The answer is that you probably will not and cannot take that employment. Therefore, both the potential employer and the prospective employee lose the ability to match the employer with the employee. At the lower end of the pay scale, transportation costs are pivotal.

Many of the poor live outside of the areas of expensive housing like North Scottsdale or North Central Phoenix. They have to drive long distances to serve their clients because they have to live where housing is less expensive.

Incidentally, this problem does not just influence what help the wealthy can get for landscaping care and such but hurts those who have long-term care situations.

For the disabled like the blind, autistic, wheelchair-bound, stroke, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, the very elderly, or other afflictions that need extensive care, the people that do this work do not get paid that much. In fact, the disabled poor, get state aid that typically is around $15 per hour. Sometimes such help is not needed for a full day, which makes the economics even worse.

It makes no sense for a person to burn $25 in gasoline per day to work six hours at $15 per hour, which often turns out to be $13 per hour after tax. This has made the current shortage of labor even more acute for those who need long-term care for themselves or their relatives.

We know personally of multiple families who can’t find help at all. And even if families have the means, it is illegal to pay state-paid workers under the table. The spike in the price of gas, which is part of the Biden Plan, is seriously hurting those who need care workers.

In addition, higher fuel costs increase the price of fertilizer, gas, or diesel for the farmer’s equipment, heat for drying or harvesting, processing, and transportation to the store. In short, these designed higher fuel costs, intended to force a change in your driving habits, are integral to the dramatic rise in food prices.

It would not be too much to say, that the war against fossil fuels is a war on our standard of living, and a war on the poor specifically. It drives up the price of fuel, electricity bills, and food.

President Biden says this transition will be very painful. Indeed, it is. It was designed to be so and it didn’t have to be this way.