California Gas Regulators Ensure Prices Might Never Go Down With Hidden 50 Cent Annual Tax Increase

California Gas Regulators Ensure Prices Might Never Go Down With Hidden 50 Cent Annual Tax Increase

By Matt Funicello |

   

CREDIT: Jennifer Van Laar/Townhall Media

A little-known longstanding fossil fuels reduction program that was put in place by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) could very well lead to a 50-cent per gallon cost increase for gasoline and diesel fuel sold in the state. The report, released in September by the state's environmental regulator body, says that California may see the increase of 50 cents per gallon as early as next year and every year after that. The program's fee is in addition to the gas tax increases already put in place by Senate Bill 1 of 2017, where the state authorized an increase in the state's taxes on gas and diesel.

Included in the cost for every gallon of gas sold is approximately $1.00 of fees and taxes. With this report, it would bring the total of taxes and fees per gallon to $1.50 next year. The report is forecasting these increases due to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard reforms brought forward in 2007. Prices could likely rise by 47 cents next year and 52 cents by 2026, with diesel prices climbing by 59 cents this year and 66 cents in two years. Long-term projections could see gasoline prices explode by $1.15 and diesel by $1.50 per gallon from 2031 to 2046. 

Gas prices in California in the last five years years, have grown to the highest levels ever seen in the history of the State. Some individual stations across the state in the same timeframe saw prices go to almost $10 per gallon, making gasoline in the Golden State the most expensive in the entire country. At the same time, Governor Gavin Newsom has gone on a propaganda campaign across the state and even the country, pointing his finger directly at the oil companies. Newsom wrongly suggested that the oil companies were responsible for the sharp increase in gas prices across the state. 

This recent report is just another step made by Newsom and his administration to attack on anything related to oil and gas. With the state banning sales of any vehicle with a gas/diesel powered engine by 2035 and requiring all vehicle sales to be electric by the same year, Newsom is not hiding his hatred for these vehicles. This future increase in the costs of gasoline and diesel will affect every person living in California. Specifically, it will crush the lower and middle class living in the state. With the rising costs in everything across the board, gasoline is quickly becoming the most expensive consumable product in the state, and will eventually become too expensive for the lower class and even some of the middle class to afford.  

The state's broad effort to electrify its transportation sector is part of the California Climate Commitment unveiled by Newsom two years ago. Under the plan, the state is phasing out reliance on fossil fuels, deploying green energy, cutting greenhouse gas emissions 85% by 2045 and decreasing oil demand by a staggering 94%.

This most recent move by the California Air Resources Board, a board of un-elected bureaucrats that are beholden to their overseer named Gavin Newsom, shows that Newsom and his fellow leftists are hell-bent on destroying the middle and lower classes in California. No explanation or attempt at justifying this policy makes logical sense to those of us who try to understand it. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that your bank account is shrinking at an ever-increasing pace, and it isn't because you are buying luxury cars or homes. It's because you decided to fill up your car to get to work and get groceries on the same day. Bills are getting pushed back instead of getting paid on time, credit cards are getting maxed out and people are starting to raise concerns about paying the mortgage or rent on time now. 

I keep driving by the gas stations and thinking that I will never see the price of gas go down to $3 a gallon ever again in California. Every year, it will get more expensive, and every time, Newsom will blame oil companies and people like me, who drive large vehicles with larger engines and even larger gas tanks. Newsom and his fellow leftists are taking away our freedoms, plain and simple. 

https://redstate.com/mdempsey/2024/05/13/california-gas-regulators-ensure-prices-might-never-go-down-with-hidden-50-cent-annual-tax-increase-n2174144

A Studious, Attentive Joe Biden Genuinely Believes He's Beating Trump Right Now (Polls Be Damned)

A Studious, Attentive Joe Biden Genuinely Believes He's Beating Trump Right Now (Polls Be Damned)

By Joe Cunningham 

   

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

The Biden team has taken up a position that winning campaigns don't take: Claiming the polls are wrong and that they are actually winning. 

My colleague Bonchie pointed out earlier this morning that a Biden campaign account posted a clip of Joe Scarborough ranting about how the New York Times/Siena College poll has "has consistently slanted toward Donald Trump" and that "The New York Times will release their poll, the political and media class will run around with their hair on fire, and then three days later polls will show a deadlocked race."

It is one thing for a pundit to make the claim that a particular poll, especially one that has actually been one of the most consistently correct in recent years, is skewed one way or another. It's one thing for campaign surrogates to make that claim. It's quite another for a clearly marked campaign account to push that claim.

As Bonchie rightfully noted, it reeks of desperation.

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READ MORE: Biden Campaign Desperation Sets in, Now Saying the Polls Are Fake

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A separate report, this time from Axios, points out that this isn't just campaign spin - the Biden team genuinely believes this is the case. They believe that the polling is wrong and that Biden is tied or even beating Trump.

What's more, Axios is reporting that President Joe Biden is studying every poll, even digging into the crosstabs.

Between the lines: However he feels about all the public polls, Biden is clearly well briefed on them — and often goes deep into the cross tabs.

• "We run strongest among likely voters in the polling data," Biden told wealthy donors in Medina on Saturday. "And while the national polls basically have us (among) registered voters up by four, (among) likely voters we're up by more."
• "In the last 23 national polls, I've been ahead in 10 of them, Trump has been ahead in eight, and we've been tied in five," he said at a campaign event in Tampa, Florida., citing surveys by Marist, Echelon Insights and Marquette.

The polling, as it currently stands, essentially confirms that if the election were held today, then Donald Trump would reclaim the throne of America and Joe Biden would become a one-term wonder.

But, the election isn't being held today. Nor is it being held tomorrow. In fact, it is six months away and a lot of things on the ground could change.

The problem for the Biden team is that those changes are poised to not look great for the president. Just today, the Producer Price Index numbers were released, showing the PPI increased 0.5 percent for the month, which was higher than the 0.3 percent Dow Jones estimate. That news doesn't bode well for folks who were hoping for interest rate cuts this year. The border isn't getting much better, which is a major concern for a lot of folks, especially in some swing states. The economy, in general, still has a lot of people nervous.

Of course, Democrats are still banking on the various Trump trials producing fruit for them, but it is starting to appear that it's backfiring. More and more voters are responding to pollsters on the issue, saying they believe these cases are more political than legal. It's just brutal for Biden if that's the case because there is very much a public perception that his administration is directing this.

But, the worst news for Biden is that there's a noticeable polling shift among Likely Voters - Biden held an advantage with them, but Trump is definitely catching up.

If that one trend holds, it's devastating for Biden. People who voted in 2020 and 2022 are more likely to vote for Biden, several polls recently showed. But if that trend is breaking, and active voters are starting to warm up to Trump, then Biden's biggest advantage is slipping.

Given the number of voters who aren't thrilled with re-running the 2020 campaign in 2024, it's not difficult to imagine that this election turnout will be lower than 2020. It doesn't seem like the average voter is particularly excited about our choices this year (and, man, do I understand that feeling), and that would make this year a race to get as many people within your own base out, not just independents. But, if that's what this campaign will come down to, it doesn't seem like Biden is doing great there, either.

Biden may be confident that he's winning, but there's very little data to support that. It's a level of denial that is, frankly, kind of impressive while also being extremely on-brand for a guy who has been consistently wrong since taking office.

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2024/05/14/a-studious-attentive-joe-biden-genuinely-believes-hes-beating-trump-right-now-polls-be-damned-n2174172?utm_source=rsafternoonbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=333548a2571394d78f5984884e55069e

Here’s Why Biden Is Reportedly Withholding Intel From Israel

Here’s Why Biden Is Reportedly Withholding Intel From Israel

Spencer Brown |

    

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

As Vespa reported over the weekend, the Biden administration has been shamefully trying to prevent Israel from finishing its righteous campaign to end Hamas and restore safety for Israeli citizens in the wake of the October 7 massacre. Those efforts from the White House now include dangling valuable U.S. intelligence about the whereabouts of Hamas leadership that the U.S. — for whatever reason — has not previously shared with its allies in Jerusalem:

The Biden administration, working urgently to stave off a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah, is offering Israel valuable assistance if it holds back, including sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders and find the group’s hidden tunnels, according to four people familiar with the U.S. offers. 

In addition to being an inexplicable move by Biden — if he was worried about civilian casualties in Gaza, why wouldn't he want Israel and its IDF soldiers to have the best info available to target Hamas leaders? — it's another incredibly moronic double standard. 

Back in February 2022, Townhall reported revelations that the Biden administration had wasted months leaning on China in a foolhardy attempt to convince the CCP — a foe of the United States — to talk Russia out of invading Ukraine in the lead-up to Putin's eventual war:

...senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia’s troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade.

The nature and classification level of the intelligence could vary between situations, but the disparity speaks to the Biden administration's inane foreign policy and the fact that the president has never made a correct foreign policy decision in his decades-long career. 

That Biden would withhold intelligence from our greatest ally in the Middle East but share information with the Chinese Communist Party is simply inexplicable. The impact of Biden's decisions in both situations saw Russia and China grow closer and more reliant on each other in a developing axis of evil (along with Iran and North Korea) while he's left Israel out to dry — a clear message to that axis that the U.S. is fearful, weak, and retreating from global leadership. 

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Israel is America's friend, China is not. It's not a difficult reality to grasp, yet Biden continues to act the opposite of what this reality demands. If you're a foe of the United States, you'll get great treatment from Biden and his administration, just ask Iran and it's billions in unfrozen assets and illicil oil revenue. But if you find your country on America's side, you just might end up abandoned. 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2024/05/13/biden-withholds-intel-from-israel-after-sharing-with-the-ccp-n2638986

‘Green’ Housing Mandates Push Americans Further Into the Red

‘Green’ Housing Mandates Push Americans Further Into the Red

By E.J. Antoni

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4:06

Commentary

Home prices across the nation are back up near a record high. That makes this a particularly bad time for the Biden administration to have rolled out its new “green” energy mandates, which will add $31,000 to the cost of a new home.

The mandates are being pushed through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and while they technically won’t apply to all homes, all homebuilders will effectively be forced to comply with them.

The Biden administration doesn’t deny this higher upfront cost. It simply claims it’ll pay for itself via lower energy bills. Unfortunately, the break-even point is 90 years.

So if a young couple buys one of these new green energy homes and has a child one year later, the regulatory costs still won’t have paid for themselves in that child’s lifetime, let alone the life of the couple who bought the home.

HUD argues that homebuilders will be able to get tax credits via the Inflation Reduction Act to offset some of these costs, with those savings hopefully passed along to homebuyers. However, this is not a real reduction in costs; it’s merely passing the buck to taxpayers. Instead of a homebuyer’s bearing the full freight of these green energy mandates, some of the cost will be passed on to taxpayers, including renters.

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This is just the latest example of how failed public policies are creating a two-tiered society in America, where an entire generation of Americans will likely never be able to afford their own homes.

Amid a cost-of-living crisis, renters today are paying more than ever in housing costs, with half of them reporting difficulty paying their rent on time. More than 20 percent said they did at least one of the following to stay current on rent: skipped meals, worked extra hours, sold personal belongings.

With the average monthly rent for a home up by 50 percent in just four years and the cost of other necessities such as food, clothing, and energy also skyrocketing, many Americans have nothing left to save at the end of the month. Small wonder the average savings rate today is less than half what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

That means many renters can never afford to save for a down payment, so they’re stuck renting forever.

Even those who manage to scrimp and save for their jumbo-size down payment still may not be able to afford the monthly mortgage payment, which has doubled since January 2021. Despite record-high rental prices, owning a home has never been so expensive relative to rents.

The fallout from people being unable to afford a home goes far beyond dollars and cents. Young people delay marriage and having children. A two-tiered society springs up between the “haves,” who were lucky enough to buy a home at the right time, and the “have-nots,” who were too late. Americans become increasingly divided along racial lines. People lose hope.

These new green energy mandates will worsen conditions in the frozen housing market for the same reason that other failed public policies caused the mess in the first place: These energy mandates increase prices.

Runaway government spending caused 40-year-high inflation that drove up prices everywhere, including for housing. Inflation also necessitated higher interest rates, which have made it impossible for many people to sell their homes since that would mean losing a 2 percent to 3 percent mortgage in exchange for a 7 percent to 8 percent one.

Inflation has also driven construction costs to record highs, and those costs are passed to homebuyers in the form of higher prices. Since most people cannot afford a home at these higher prices, homebuilders are producing fewer houses.

Thus, the supply of new and existing homes has been severely curtailed. The growth in apartment buildings will likely fall sharply and soon, too. Forward-looking indicators such as building permits are declining; the number of job openings in construction fell in March by the biggest drop on record. Less construction of apartments will mean even more upward pressure on rent prices.

Americans need relief, not regulation, in their struggle to find affordable housing.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/green-housing-mandates-push-americans-further-into-the-red-5647761?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=BonginoReport&src_src=partner&src_cmp=BonginoReport