Gov. Newsom to Lower Gas Prices With Gas Tax Hikes
How stupid do you have to be to believe this? I don't know. But in my brief tenure as a Californian, I've seen voters believe that giving politicians billions of dollars would solve “homelessness”, vote for most tax hikes and the most insane leftist politicians.
Tax hikes to lower gas prices? Bring them on.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is lashing out at oil companies who he says are “fleecing” Californians with gasoline prices that are rising disproportionately in the Golden State.
“The fact is, they're ripping you off. Their record profits are coming at your expense,” Newsom said in a scathing video posted to Twitter Friday in which the governor called for a new windfall tax on oil companies.
They are ripping you off. And by “they”, I mean Newsom and the Democrat supermajority.
Let's look at the cost of gas at the California pump again.
A report from Stillwater Associates last year found that California consumers were paying an extra $1.19 a gallon. This year the added costs include a 51 cent state excise tax, an 18 cent sales tax, 20 cents for Fuels Under the Cap, part of the state's corrupt environmental cap and trade program and 17 cents for the Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
Californians are paying a $1.41 federal and state tax markup on $3 bucks of crude.
Or almost half.
Biden and other Democrats have blamed corporate profits, but the gas stations and suppliers are making a mere 33 cents a gallon or less than a third of the state’s added $1.08 in various taxes. Even the refiners are only making 72 cents. The biggest piece of the pie is coming from the taxes, many of them hidden, imposed by Democrats in the name of saving the planet.
While Newsom and Big Green describe some of these taxes as allowances and credits as part of a marketplace, they are really a corrupt scheme to force consumers to pay money to special interests and politically connected companies under the guise of “saving the planet”.
Democrats sold the fuel taxes as penalties on polluters. They claimed that imposing them would “make the polluters pay”. Few Californians seemed to understand that by “polluters”, the Sacramento political establishment meant the single mother picking up her son from school, the supermarket cashier commuting to work, and everyone else who can’t afford a Tesla.
The California average gas price is now over $6 a gallon, compared to $4.60 for the rest of the country, because Democrats are making ordinary drivers, whom they call “polluters”, pay.
Are Californians going to be stupid enough to fall for this again?
Newsom said the windfall tax would “ensure these profits go directly back to help millions of Californians who are paying for this oil company extortion.”
What Newsom really means is that instead of a gas tax holiday, the Sacramento mob decided to send ‘rebate’ checks to car owners. The ‘rebates’ will be financed with more taxes which will raise the price of gas. And Newsom will respond by railing some more at the companies and then raising taxes to finance a new round of rebate checks. Most of the money from the taxes will actually be diverted to assorted special interests, while consumers will get a $400 gift card.
That’ll be enough to pay for how much gas.
Newsom is betting that this class warfare from a wine country millionaire will be eaten up by the suckers. And who’s to say it won’t?
“The degree of diversions from the national prices has never happened before, and oil companies provide no explanation,” Newsom said. “We’re not going to stand by while greedy oil companies fleece Californians.”
The explanation is the high level of taxes and regulations imposed by Newsom and his Democrat supermajority on Californians.
And Newsom and the Democrats won’t stand by while greedy oil companies will fleece Californians. That’s their job.
