The Election Will Save America From Democrats' Radical Policies

On the eve of the midterm elections, as President Biden makes his closing arguments, he’s decided to remind everyone that he intends to shut down coal plants: “We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar also providing tax credit to help families buy energy-efficient appliances.”

Sounds pretty clear to me, but the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, tried to spin it otherwise: “The president’s words we believe were twisted and we were very clear about that. And anyone who knows Joe Biden knows he comes from a coal country from Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

Twisted? Coal country? Well, hang on a second. The president came right back, saying this to a climate activist at a rally in New York: “No more drilling. There is no more drilling. I haven’t formed any new drilling.”

Could he be any clearer? I mean, seriously, for a guy who’s frequently challenged by English language syntax, I’d say this is the clearest statement of all: “no more drilling,” which is a near cousin to “shutting down coal plants.”

That doesn’t lack context. It is the context. Now, this is the same guy who said a couple weeks ago: “My administration has not stopped or slowed oil production. Quite the opposite.”

So, let me repeat my view that one of the biggest problems people have with Mr. Biden is that he’s simply incapable of telling the truth about the economy, about energy, or, frankly, about any of his policies.

His war against fossil fuels — be it leasing, permitting, drilling, pipelining, refining, and lets include the hundreds of everyday refined petroleum products, including toothbrushes, toothpaste, golf clubs, MRI machines, stethoscopes, fertilizer for food groceries, tents, tennis rackets, and insect repellent, whose costs have all skyrocketed during his administration, including a 40 percent jump in energy costs and a 17 percent increase in groceries — has killed family budgets, plunged real wages, and taken a booming economy and turned it into a recessionary bust.

You can’t spin this. You can’t plead context. What you must do is recognize that Mr. Biden’s radical climate change, Green New Deal socialism has been an utter, abject failure. No wonder the cavalry’s coming.

Tomorrow is Election Day, and I already hear the cavalry galloping. But there’s a sidebar to Mr. Biden’s energy hypocrisy.

Senator Manchin is very upset. He blasted Mr. Biden’s coal closing remarks, calling them “outrageous” and “divorced from reality,” “causing severe economic pain to the American people,” and even suggesting that voters are losing trust in  Mr. Biden.

Well, Mr. Manchin, you made your bed and now you must lie in it. You double-crossed West Virginia coal people, and all Americans for that matter, when you made a devil’s deal with Mr. Biden and Senator Schumer.

The fraudulently named Inflation Reduction Act that you voted for was a sellout to the greenies, and your argument that in return you would get fossil fuel permitting turned out to be a complete fraud. You gave the greenies $400 billion in subsidies — and you got nothing in return. No permits, no Mountain Valley Pipeline, nothing. Nada.

Now, to quote from St. Paul in the Galatians: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” Mr. Manchin, you are reaping what you have sown.

Ironically, coal is being used more and more as a backup for unreliable wind power. Coal is booming right now in the U.S., in Europe, in China, and in India. It’s not the final answer to energy, but it is cleaner and is in greater demand. Just saying.

You know what? It’s Democrats and their incoherent, unworkable, radical policies that are the real extremists in this election. What’s that sound I hear? That’s right. It’s the cavalry galloping to the rescue.

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.

Larry Kudlow was the Director of the National Economic Council under President Trump from 2018-2021. His Fox Business show "Kudlow" airs at 4 p.m &. and his radio show airs on 770 ABC from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.