Why idiotic drill baby drill doesn’t work

Why idiotic drill baby drill doesn’t work

Gas prices in 2026 are close to 25% more than 2025, because electing an oil industry friendly president is never going to lower prices.

The all time high, adjusted for inflation, gas price came under another president that tried to expand drilling — George. W. Bush. Just like Trump, instead of trying to wean America from oil, Bush was busy with wars in the middle east.

Meanwhile U.S. crude oil production actually reached historic highs under Joe Biden, but that didn’t stop the price of gas from also nearing historic heights. Oil is a global commodity and America stupidly uses as much or more of it than anyone:

The main path for Americans to pay less for gasoline is to use less but:

President Donald Trump ended the federal electric vehicle tax credits after signing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” on July 4, 2025. The legislation terminated the up to $7,500 new EV credit, the $4,000 used EV credit, and related lease-incentive structures for any vehicle purchased or placed in service after September 30, 2025.

Plus

The administration acknowledged in court filings that it cut $7.6 billion in clean energy project grants across 16 states that voted for Democrats in the 2024 election.

And despite the AI sector’s increasing electricity needs:

The Department of Energy moved to slash up to 90% of funding for fast-growing renewable technologies, cutting wind budgets down to roughly $30 million and solar down to $42 million.

Meanwhile recent polling says:

Americans’ frustrations with prices and the economy overall are changing how they say they will vote in the fall.

Of the 46 percent of Americans who said gas prices will have an impact on their vote, just under 40 percent said they are considering voting for a different party than they normally would, including 49 percent of MAGA Republicans and 57 percent of non-MAGA Republicans.

The price of gasoline has an enormous single issue voter sway and so now:

EVs make up 7.4% of new vehicle registrations and roughly 1.9% of all total vehicles on U.S. roads. EVs make up 12% of the total vehicle fleet on China’s roads, while their share of new car sales has surged past 60%.

That’s to be expected since in China ultra-low-cost models start under $8,000 and over 200 electric and hybrid options sell for less than $25,000. The cheapest new EVs in the U.S. start around $29,000, and average transaction prices stretch past $50,000.

So when the national average gas price in 2026 reached $4.48 per gallon in May 2026, it caused severe hardship for around one fifth of Americans.

So far with the Iran war there has been an oil price ceiling formed by China pausing imports, but if the war continues there will also likely be a floor forming where at low enough prices China imports oil again.

Or China could run out of reserves.

It’s not entirely clear how much longer it can keep this up, but it probably has reserves large enough to go another three to four months, said Natasha Kaneva, head of commodities analysis at JP Morgan.

U.S. crude oil production reached an all-time high of 13.4 million barrels per day in August 2024 under the Biden administration. Under the Trump administration, U.S. crude oil production achieved an all-time high of approximately 13.9 million barrels per day. The 1/2 a million barrel difference is not only small but, short of using emergency powers, the US government cannot stop it from being sold abroad:

Article I, Section 9, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution explicitly states that “no Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.” This prevents Congress or the President from placing a direct financial tariff on American-made oil leaving U.S. ports.

The idiocy of drill baby drill must be compared to the way in which other empires handled scarcity in order to have a sense of how stupid it really is.

When wood and charcoal grew scarce due to intense urbanization and pottery production, Romans utilized olive pomace (the leftover waste from pressing olives) as an efficient alternative fuel source.

That’s right the Romans were deep into alternative energy.

During the Han dynasty, Emperor Wu nationalized the production of salt and iron to stop private merchants from hoarding profits and to fund the government.

Ironically Emperor Wu sounds a lot like the man that the MAGA cult once delusionally imagined Trump to be:

The Han dynasty up to this point was run according to a Taoist wu wei ideology, championing economic freedom and government decentralization. Regarding foreign policy, periodic heqin was used to maintain a de jure peace with the Xiongnu to the north. These policies were important in stimulating economic recovery following the post-Qin dynasty civil war, but had their drawbacks. The non-interventionist policies resulted in loss of monetary regulation and political control by the central government, allowing the feudal vassal states to become powerful and unruly, culminating in the Rebellion of the Seven States during Emperor Jing’s reign. Nepotism among the ruling class also stagnated social mobility and encouraged nobles’ rampant disregard of laws, leading to the rise of local despots who bullied and oppressed the population. The heqin policy also failed to protect the Han borders against nomadic raids, with Xiongnu cavalries invading as close as 300 li (100 miles, 160 km) from the capital during Emperor Wen’s reign, and over 10,000 border residents abducted or enslaved during Emperor Jing’s reign. Prominent politicians like Jia Yi and Chao Cuo had both previously advised on the necessity of important policy reforms, but neither Emperor Wen nor Emperor Jing was willing to risk implementing such changes.

Unlike the emperors before him, the young and vigorous Emperor Wu was unwilling to put up with the status quo. Only a year into his reign in late 141 BC, Emperor Wu took the advice of Confucian scholars and launched an ambitious reform, known in history as the Jianyuan Reforms (建元新政).

Just on the very remote chance that any Trump voter is reading, here is how you tell the difference between a Wu and an imbecile:

Age — Wu was 16 and Trump, for his second term, 78.

Appointed leaders — Wu used young loyal supporters from ordinary backgrounds. The majority of Trump high-level appointees come from wealthy, corporate, or elite educational backgrounds (even Hegseth was Princeton and then Harvard).

Drain the swamp strategy — Wu sent out nationwide edicts appealing to grassroots scholars to enroll in government services to break the stranglehold that the older-generation noble class had. Trump fired or disabled any part of the government capable of enforcing regulations like those that could apply to big oil.

Put another way drill baby drill isn’t a reform; it’s been the status quo since at least 1859 and as a policy it will just get you more of the same.