It seems like it should have been sent out on April 1 rather than December 2, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) on Thursday tweeted a graph showing that gas prices had gone down by 2 cents, with the caption of "Thanks, @JoeBiden."
Thanks, @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/0iHwTLv7fB
— DCCC (@dccc) December 2, 2021
Gas prices are particularly high as of late, and have hit record-high levels in California during Biden's presidency, with the president having been in office for less than a year. As Matt Egan reported for CNN last Wednesday, "Thanksgiving gas prices are the highest since 2012."
Can I get the play-by-play on who on your staff thought this was a good idea? The graphics guy who made it? The comms guy who thinks two cents is something to high-five over? Whoever approved and then tweeted it? Truly amazing stuff.
— Andrew Wagner (@andrewwagner) December 2, 2021
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 2, 2021
DCCC social media intern checking his phone pic.twitter.com/oMNjiYjbPi
— Kevin McMahon (@Kevin__McMahon) December 2, 2021
“High gas prices aren’t our fault.. but please give us credit for the 2 CENT DROP.”
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) December 2, 2021
Incredible messaging here. https://t.co/wn3nAHXZIh
Pelosi in 2018:
— Alexander Saunders (@ColSaunders1855) December 2, 2021
Biden in 2021: pic.twitter.com/PSew33khoZ
Predictably, the tweet was massively ratioed, as our friends at Twitchy picked up on as well.
It wasn't just a dumb tweet, though. The distorted graph was also dishonest.
The @dccc is using a misleading graph (look at the Y axis, it's measured in minuscule increments) to celebrate gas prices going down two cents in one week https://t.co/JLUH51kZ26
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) December 2, 2021
"Siri, show me a chart crime.”
— Nathan Yuletide Yates ?? (@NathanEYates) December 2, 2021
Siri: https://t.co/NRf92Bk75Z
If I'd produced a chart like this for a client presentation, I would have been fired on the spot.
— @RobinJosephette (@RobinJosephette) December 2, 2021
Fixed it, @dccc #LetsGoBrandon https://t.co/ANIl9qiXtn pic.twitter.com/s2Ulxhi0q0
— Prison Mitch (@MidnightMitch) December 2, 2021
Fixed it for you. https://t.co/NRf92Bk75Z pic.twitter.com/29IWUFfYaU
— Nathan Yuletide Yates ?? (@NathanEYates) December 2, 2021
But the icing on the cake is that even Philip Bump from the Washington Post called out this nonsense, not in just some tweet of his own, but an entire analysis piece, "This might be the worst defense of the Biden administration yet."
"But the axis does not use the scale. Instead, the line drops from about $3.40 to about $3.38, as marked on the y-axis — or, in layman’s terms, a decline of two cents. And since we’re talking about two cents out of nearly four dollars, that graph depicts a drop in the price of gas of just under 1 percent of the cost," Bump writes.
— Abigail Marone ???? (@abigailmarone) December 2, 2021
Others also called to mind the White House's claim that Americans saved 16 cents over the 4th of July weekend, which didn't even turn out to be true, thanks to something called inflation, as Spencer analyzed at the time.
16 cents on July 4, 2 cents a gallon on gas
— Nate Madden (@NateOnTheHill) December 2, 2021
Have you saved enough for the tesla you're supposed to buy yet? https://t.co/W8PVXbvQ7A
Two pennies! Wow! This savings coupled with the sixteen pennies we saved on our 4th of July barbecue is almost enough to buy... well, I'm not sure what, but I'm sure it's very nice.
— Aldous Huxley's Ghost™ (@AF632) December 2, 2021
2 cents saved on gas is the absolute perfect sequel to 16 cents saved on hot dogs. What a time to be alive. https://t.co/mxd0Iv3gfd
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) December 2, 2021
This recent move from Democrats is just one of many boneheaded reactions on rising gas prices.
As Leah reported last month, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm laughed when confronted with the question of rising gas prices.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm laughs when asked about Biden's plans to bring gas prices down.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 5, 2021
"Ha ha ha. That is hilarious!" pic.twitter.com/0V0XCsVqDc
President Joe Biden last week announced he was tapping into the strategic oil reserves in an attempt to curb gas prices, a heavily criticized move which doesn't amount to much, especially since, as Spencer reported on Tuesday, a "large portion" will go to China and India.
The Department of Interior on last Friday also called for increasing fees for drilling on public lands in a report that had been inexplicably delayed many times.
Despite repeated calls from both sides of the aisle to do so, President Biden has not reinstated the Keystone XL Pipeline, though, which he killed as one of his first executive orders.
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