Ciscomani’s Midterm May Be a “Diesel Election”

If It Isn’t a “Burger Election”

Photo credit: Ciscomani from Arizona Daily Star, Trump from the internet

Juan, diesel is killing your chances

In spite of Dark Elon’s finances.

You are tied to Don Trump,

Whom it’s too late to dump,

While Mendoza upon you advances.

            Everybody’s talking about the price of gasoline these days, and most of them mean what everyday drivers pump into their cars. Up by about 65 percent per gallon from before the start of the Iran War, it’s pretty awful. But there’s another level to the pain, which is hurting, and will continue to hurt, much more.

            The price of diesel fuel has also risen stratospherically both in Pima County and Arizona (and everywhere else) since the poorly-though-out attack on Iran at the end of February (an attack that local Congressman Juan Ciscomani thought was a good idea, by the way. It’s such a good idea for him that he has voted six times against giving Congress some control over the war).

What’s so special about diesel? It runs almost every type of machinery that works behind the scenes to make American life what Americans expect. Long-haul trucks burn it, and so do many delivery trucks. The farm machinery that plants and harvests food use it, as do the machines that build new houses. The US uses about 1.4 billion barrels, almost 60 billion gallons, a year.

The Trump administration appears to have no real clue as to what to do about the extreme inflationary threat caused by the price of the refined oil that runs through the economy’s veins. Well, it could stop the Iran War and free tanker shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, but, you know…

The latest “solution” to be floated is to ban the export of diesel refined in the US, keeping it all to ourselves. Experts say that’s a politically driven idea that might make things worse. If American oil companies kept all the diesel they refined and sold it in the US, prices would drop, at least within trucking distance of the South and West Coast refineries. But then the refineries, having produced more diesel than immediately needed, would cut back, leading to prices going up again eventually. In other words, a drop in diesel, and regular gas prices, for that matter, isn’t going to happen immediately, and not likely to improve Republicans’ chances in the November 3 election.

Right now, voters being polled give Republicans massive failing grades on the economy, which can be found in the averages at the Silver Bulletin website, which has Donald Trump at a 46 percent negative on inflation and 32 percent of red ink on the economy in general.

            But what if it’s not just the high cost of getting stuff to people? What if the high cost of the STUFF itself, which can’t be tamped down by a few “brilliant” Executive Orders, has people mad as hell?

            The current object of folks’ ire is the cost of a pound of hamburger. It’s up, despite an apparently fruitless effort by the Trump administration to bring it down at the start of this month by allowing tariff-free ground beef to be imported to the American market and encouraging stores to sell it at a discount. The American Farm Bureau Federation, whose beef farmers were put at a disadvantage by this move, has found that “the average price of ground beef barely moved, going from $7.29 a pound on Sept. 2 to $7.13 a pound on Sept. 23 – a reduction of 16 cents or approximately 2%.”

            Maybe everyone should shop where White House chief economist Kevin Hassett does. He was quoted the other day: ”I go to the grocery store every weekend and I just noticed the hamburger for my barbecue was down two dollars from a couple of weeks ago.” Few, apparently, have believed him.

            There are multiple reasons for the price increases angering American consumers, from bad weather to parasite infestations (remember the Avian Flu and eggs?). But the actions of the Trump administration, supported explicitly or implicitly by the often very quiet Juan Ciscomani, have a lot to do with this:

• Rising employee absenteeism at meat packing plants while ICE immigration sweeps are underway have slowed down the processing of cattle.
• Fertilizer costs for farmers have risen from five to 15 percent in the past year, in part because the basic chemicals used in making some of them are as bottled up in the Persian Gulf due to the Iran War as crude oil.
• Administration actions to deny long-haul trucking licenses to immigrants have led  “tens of thousands” of them to lose their licenses, driving up the cost of putting drivers behind the wheel.

A lot of it comes down to trucking. The Wall Street Journal, besides writing about the trucker licenses, quoted Joseph Firrincieli, sales manager for a logistics and freight company: “Any goods that you see in a grocery store or a department store got there in a truck. Inevitably, there will be an impact on the everyday consumer.”

            In the short term, there is likely to be an impact on the Republican control of Congress, especially in the House of Representatives. Polls show the party not flourishing in the current electoral climate. Do your part. Vote for JoAnna Mendoza, Juan Ciscomani’s opponent (and the daughter of farm workers, by the way).