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If you believe the talking points of Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration, Americans are seeing high gas prices through no fault of theirs but because of two reasons Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinRepublican senators introduce bill to ban Russian uranium imports Hillicon Valley Invasion complicates social media policy Defense & National Security Blinken details Russia's possible next steps MORE's invasion of Ukraine and the price gouging of selfish American oil and gas producers.

This outrage is laughable because Democrats areactively pursuingat least 17 energy tax increases that would raise prices for families and small businesses.

President BidenJoe BidenRepublican senators introduce bill to ban Russian uranium imports Energy & Environment Ruling blocking climate accounting metric halted Fauci says officials need more than .5B for COVID-19 response MORE's fiscal year 2022 budget includes a dozen tax increases on American energy. The Democrats' socialist tax-and-spend bill,Build Back Better, includes several tax hikes on energy including a home heating tax. Progressives like Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenThe Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - What now after Zelensky's speech? Senate panel advances Biden Fed nominees to confirmation votes On The Money Fed starts hiking rates as prices climb MORE (D-Mass.) and Sheldon WhitehouseSheldon WhitehouseGas prices lead to tensions within Democratic Party Senate unanimously approves making daylight saving time permanent Carole King to discuss forest fires before Oversight subcommittee MORE (D- R.I.) want a 50 percentwindfall profits taxon oil and gas businesses.

Higher taxes do not just hit businesses they are also passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. Raising taxes on corporations as Democrats have repeatedly proposed will hit families and businesses through the increased costs of basic goods and services.

The Democratic push for higher taxes on American energy producers and manufacturers will see the price of gasoline and energy increase, despite the fact that consumers are already facing record-high gas prices. In the past 12 months, gasoline has increased by38 percent, while energy has increased by25.6 percent.

However, things would be much, much worse if Democrats have their way.

First, Bidens FY 2022 budgetincluded30 tax increases totaling $3.5 trillion. This included roughly a dozen tax increases on American energy, which the left routinely characterized as tax loopholes.

However, these provisions promote manufacturing jobs and American energy independence. Repealing them would only lead to higher prices, less investment and fewer jobs. For instance, the deduction for intangible drilling costs (IDCs) allows independent producers to immediately deduct business expenses related to drilling such as labor, site preparation, repairs and survey work.

Asnotedin a 2014 study by Wood Mackenzie Consulting, repealing the deduction for IDCs would cost 265,000 jobs in the long-term.

The study notes the elimination of IDCs would also result in a $407 billion reduction in investment, or roughly 25 percent of the capital used by producers to continue investing in new projects. This would mean even less oil andhigher pricesfor American consumers.

The Democrats trillion dollar socialist Build Back Better proposal doubles down on this approach with several tax increases on American energy including a 16.4 cents per barrel tax on crude oil and petroleum products that would raises taxes by nearly $13 billion and an $8 billion home heating tax.

Americans understand that these taxes will increase energy costs according topolling conducted by HarrisX, 66 percent of voters believe these energy taxes will increase energy costs, compared to just 12 percent of voters who do not think it will increase costs.

This is not the only way prices would go up the legislation also includes $800 billion in tax increases on American businesses that would further exacerbate inflation and raise prices for consumers.

More recently, Democratsproposeda windfall profits tax which would impose a 50 percent tax on the difference between the current price of a barrel of oil and the average price per barrel between 2015 and 2019. This could raise taxes by as much as $450 billion over the next decade and would be used to finance a new welfare payment, that in combination with other Democratic policies, will pay people not to work and drive inflation.

A windfall profits tax has been tried and failed in the past. It was signed into law in 1980 by Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterWhy it's time for Black women state supreme court justices Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Walter Mears dead at 87 Administration eyes re-regulation of rail industry; would magnify supply chain problems MORE but was repealed eight years later. The Congressional Research Service hasnotedthat the windfall profits tax was an extremely complicated tax to comply with and administer, that it generated a fraction of the revenue projected and that it raised the cost of gasoline and increased dependence on foreign oil.

The Democrat's tax obsession is not limited to energy they want to use higher taxes as the solution for everything. They have pushed a global minimum tax agreement based on thebeliefthat we should be partnering with Europe, China, Russia and the rest of the world to ensure businesses pay their fair share. They havepusheda 95 percent tax on American pharmaceutical manufacturers as a solution to lower the cost of medicines. They have pushed afinancial transactions taxon every single stock trade as a solution to get tough on Wall Street and even proposed atax on businessesthat do not pay their workers $15 per hour.

While Democrats are playing politics with high energy prices and rampant inflation in general, the bottom line is their policies of higher taxes, more spending and more regulations make these problems worse, not better.

Alex Hendrie is director of Tax Policy at Americans for Tax Reform.

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If Democrats have their way, gas prices will surge even higher | TheHill - The Hill

New Jersey is a wallflower during presidential primary season.

Its June primary comes too late to help choose the nominee, so candidates skip the state and campaign elsewhere. And the last two New Jerseyans to seek the presidency, Republican Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, long had dropped out before their home state voters even got to go to the polls.

Now some state Democrats want to make New Jersey a player in presidential politics.

State Party Chair Leroy Jones Jr. asked the Democratic National Committee to make New Jersey one of the first primary states as the committee looks at changing its calendar, and state Sen. Richard Codey, a former governor, said he would introduce legislation that would move the states primary to the third week in February.

Our party cannot cling to outdated traditions that do not help us reach new voters and motivate the diverse coalition of supporters needed to win elections and enact our pro-middle class agenda, Jones wrote to national party chair Jaime Harrison, who attended Yale University with Booker. New Jersey has everything that our party needs to fulfill this important role.

Jones cited the states diversity, with double-digit percentages of Black, Latino and Asian residents; and its geography that includes large cities, suburban towns and rural counties.

And Codey, D-Essex, said moving the primary up would help build relationships with the presidential candidates, which could translate into more federal aid and other support.

The state traditionally has been one of the last to vote, except in 2008, when the primary was held on Super Tuesday in February and Democratic voters picked Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. Four years later, the primary was returned to June.

Giving New Jersey an early primary slot isnt such a far-fetched idea, said Chris Lehane, a veteran of Al Gores 2000 presidential run.

Lehane wouldnt replace Iowa and New Hampshire, which he said force candidates to engage in retail politicking and therefore deserve their early spots.

What Iowa and New Hampshire do really, really well is demonstrate whether a candidate has the retail skills to be successful, he said. These retail skills are really important in terms of how you can actually work with Congress, your ability to work with world leaders.

But New Jersey could provide another key test for candidates, Lehane said.

If you think running for office is like cultivating a garden, the Garden State would make a lot of sense, he said.

Lehane said the states primary could serve as an arbiter of how well a candidate can communicate to a large audience, especially one as diverse as New Jerseys, an audience that reflects what the nation looks like.

New Jersey is sandwiched between two major media markets: New York City and Philadelphia.

Its a visual age that we live in, Lehane said. The modern presidency is really running a content platform. Theres a lot to be said, in addition to the retail stuff, for having a state or subset of states that would be able to prove that ability to run a content machine or a content platform.

Jones said New Jerseys compactness would make Iowa superfluous.

Our state is noteworthy for its compact size as the fourth-smallest state in the nation, which would save candidates valuable travel time and resources and encourage the kind of retail campaigning that has always been a hallmark of the Democratic presidential primary process, he said.

Besides, candidates would get to meet a lot more potential voters, Codey said.

I have more people on my block where I grow up that vote in a primary than Iowa, he said.

Codeys bill would need to pass both the Democratic-controlled state Senate and Assembly and be signed by Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat.

Murphys office deferred comment to Jones on Thursday.

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Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @JDSalant.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @johnsb01.

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Top Democrat pushes for N.J to hold one of the earliest presidential primaries in 2024 - NJ.com

One of the two Democrats vying to represent north Portland in the Oregon House dropped out of the race earlier this week.

Still, Eric Delehoy will still appear on the May ballot and in the government-issued Voters Pamphlet because he didnt end his campaign before the states deadlines to withdraw from consideration.

Delehoy, a college counselor, sought to be appointed to the House seat formerly held by Tina Kotek, the former speaker now running for governor. Travis Nelson, a registered nurse who now works full time as a union representative with the Oregon Nurses Association, won the appointment and is running for election with the full backing of FuturePAC, the political action committee for House Democrats.

No Republicans are running for the seat. Candidates from minor parties have later filing deadlines.

Delehoy told supporters Monday evening that he realized over the weekend that he couldnt compete with Nelsons structural advantages.

We knew this would be a difficult race when we entered, yet we took that challenge because we believed strongly that people in our district are suffering and that they deserve more than they are currently getting, Delehoy wrote on Facebook.

Its unusual, though not unheard of, for candidates to drop out but remain on the ballot. Oregons late presidential primaries meant Democrats in 2020 and Republicans in 2016 cast ballots for candidates who dropped out before Oregonians had a chance to vote. In 2018, a state House candidate from Bend who ended her campaign in September still received more than 15% of the vote in November.

Delehoys campaign manager, Henry Pratt, said in an email that Delehoy tried to remove himself from the Voters Pamphlet and ballot but was unable to because deadlines passed. Candidates had until March 10 to finalize their Voters Pamphlet statements and March 11 to withdraw.

The campaign has about $40,000 left in its bank account, and Delehoy will pay campaign staff through the May primary.

He plans to write a memoir about his campaign experience.

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Portland Democrat drops out of House race, still will appear on ballot Oregon Capital Chronicle - Oregon Capital Chronicle

The question persists: Why did Glenn Youngkin win in a blue state? Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP/Shutterstock

Understandably, the loss of three statewide contests in previously blue-trending Virginia last November was shocking to Democrats. Interpretations of what went wrong there are having a heavy effect on how the party perceives its weaknesses heading into the 2022 midterms, so its pretty important to get it right but it doesnt seem thats whats happening.

The prevailing conventional wisdom has been that Republican Glenn Youngkin won and Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost because suburban swing voters upset about education and, to a lesser extent, economic issues switched from voting Democrat to Republican between 2020 and 2021. Indeed, a lot of influential focus-group work on the election began with the assumption that these voters made the difference and tried to interpret why they swung rather than how far they swung and how much it mattered. And the more that analysts dwelled on education issues as crucial, the more they agreed that school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic may have damaged Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey (where Democratic governor Phil Murphy had a surprisingly narrow winning margin) even more than Republican attacks on the alleged teaching of critical race theory or other culture-war topics related to schools.

Now comes a new study from the data-analysis firm TargetSmart that calls this narrative into question even more than past dissents. As TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier notes, comparing the Virginia results to data on school closures calls into question the idea that the latter affected the former:

Of the top 10 counties in Virginia ranked by days with in-person education during the 2020-2021 school year, 6 of the 10 saw a larger swing towards Republicans than the state average swing of 5.3%, while the remaining 4 counties saw a slightly below average GOP swing. In fact, the biggest swings towards Republicans occurred in southwestern Virginia, where schools were open for in person instruction for most of the year.

Conversely, those counties that conducted virtual learning for most of the 2020-2021 school year saw a smaller shift towards Republicans than the state average the top 10 counties for days spent in virtual learning in 2020-2021 saw a 3.8% average swing towards Republicans, well below the statewide average of 5.3%.

More generally, TargetSmart took a look at the voter-file information recently made available by Virginia and drew attention to some rather dramatic turnout numbers that seemed to suggest parents of school-age children in the Washington and Richmond suburbs werent the keys to this election:

Turnout among voters age 75 or olderincreased by 59%, relative to 2017 while turnout among voters under age 30 only increased by just 18%. Notably, turnout of all other age groups combined (18-74), which would likely include parents of school-aged children, only increased by 9% compared to 2017.

These are massive changes in the electorate in an election that was far from a blowout: Youngkin won by just 2%.

Its common for seniors to turn out to vote significantly more than younger cohorts in non-presidential elections. But the figures for Virginia in 2021 were unusually large:

Voters age 65 and older are an estimated15.9%of Virginias population according to the census, yet accounted for 31.9% of all ballots cast in 2021.

348,314 more seniors (ages 65+) voted in Virginias2021gubernatorial election than in the2016presidential election.

TargetSmart calls it a silver surge. Whatever you call it, it seems to suggest that variable turnout patterns rather than swing voting was the biggest deal in Youngkins win. Its also what a December analysis in FiveThirtyEight of precinct-level data showed, indicating that the big net gains by Youngkin were in Democratic- and Republican-base areas, not in highly competitive swing areas. And for that matter, thats what the much-discounted exit polls suggested, as Ron Brownstein pointed out right after the election:

None of this is to say that Youngkins victory over McAuliffe was some sort of aberration or that it shouldnt alarm Democrats. But what it takes to boost turnout by Democrats without further boosting turnout by Republicans is not the same as what it takes to persuade a narrowly defined suburban swing vote upset principally about schools. Narratives matter, and Democrats should take care to ensure they arent telling themselves the wrong story.

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Democrats Learned the Wrong Lessons From Losing Virginia - New York Magazine

A candidate for the Democratic nomination for Dover alderman believes he can separate his personal views on abortion from his actions as an elected official.

Marcos Tapia, Sr. lost his seat in the 2021 primary by six votes after Gov. Phil Murphy endorsed his three running mates but skipped over him because of a Facebook post highlighting his pro-life position.

As a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception. As a politician, I would never seek to legislate that belief, said Tapia. The indisputable fact is that reproductive rights are a constitutional right. This is not something I would ever seek to undermine as a public official. Not now, not ever.

Tapis is seeking a return to local government this year, challenging incumbent Carlos Valencia in the Democratic primary.

Morris Democrats are still reeling over a controversy last fall when some activists pulled support of a county commissioner candidate after finding out that he was a pro-life activist who had never disclosed their views to him.

Now Tapia, who said his Facebook was careless and an error in judgment, is positioning himself as a Joe Biden Democrat on the abortion issue.

I recognize that the health complications of a pregnant woman and that of the being growing in her womb may justify the need for an abortion, he said. This is a decision that should be left to the woman, her doctor, and her family. No government official should be involved in this delicate matter.

Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said there is room in the Democratic Party for candidates who disagree on issues.

Theres no question the party with the bigger, broader tent wins; the question is whether any candidate can have credibility within both the pro-life and pro-choice camps at the same time, Rasmussen said. Voters interested in abortion can listen to his rationale and reach their own decisions. But I doubt whether the presence of a single pro-life candidate will dampen enthusiasm for the entire ticket.

As Morris County Democratic Chairman Chip Robinson weights whether to award the line to candidates backed by Dover Democratic Municipal Chairman Edward Correa or to Tapia and his running mate, Karol Ruiz, the assistant deputy state public defender, hell need to decide whether support for a local candidate whose views on abortion are not the same as other Democrats is in the greater good of the party.

You could certainly see it constraining the county organizations fund-raising ability, Rasmussen said. Ultimately the members need to balance that with funding the best candidates willing to run.

Some Democrats in the New Jersey Legislature are personally pro-life. Several abstained on a vote earlier this year to codify Roe v. Wade into State law and State Sen. Fred Madden (D-Washington), the Gloucester County Democratic Chairman, voted no.

I just dont know that theres a single, disqualifying issue, Rasmussen said. Pro-choicers arent satisfied with the moderate legislative majority, but I dont know that it has cost them. Its a balance. And ultimately, I think you fall on the side of the bigger tent.

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Pro-life Democrat says personal views won't interfere with government role if he wins - New Jersey Globe | New Jersey Politics