Biden Taps Oil Reserve

President Biden announced he would tap our strategic oil reserves in an effort to fight ...

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President Biden announced he would tap our strategic oil reserves in an effort to fight high gas prices. Our hosts are here to discuss the economic realities of that decision. Plus, it was the slap heard around the world: Why can’t we stop talking about it? Sarah, Jonah, David, and Scott finish the show talking about gaffes, cocaine-fueled orgies, and standing in line.

Show Notes:

–TMD: “It’s a Petroleum Reserve Release, but Is It Strategic?”

–The Dispatch: “The Uncomfortable Truth of Biden’s Gaffe”

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  1. Chris S.

    The Jones Act is one of the single most important pieces of legislation we currently have in the U.S. I was shocked to hear the seemingly unanimous opposition to it. It is of INCREDIBLE importance to national security and the well-being of our country as a maritime nation. Has the opposition considered any implications? Prices may decrease slightly, sure. But the flip side is unthinkable. Losing a war to any major power in a matter of days, hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their jobs overnight, hundreds of billions lost annually in the American economy, and the US becoming completely dependent on foreign powers for maritime trade as well as military shipbuilding.

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    Jason Godwin

    100% agree with Scott on waiting in lines! If a fast food restaurant does not offer order ahead and curbside pickup, I'm out. Oddly though, I still prefer to pick up my own groceries in-store because I value getting to pick the produce with the best quality. Like Scott said: it's all cost-benefit analysis in the end.

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    hajaXavier

    Best podcast moment EVER. The giggle off mike should be used in a future The Sweep podcast intro music like Zoe's a-roo! 🤣🤣

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    Andy Napoli

    I don't have a lot of occasion to sharply disagree with the Dispatch Podcaster team, but I want to take exception to the "Presidential Budgets are just messaging documents" argument. For purposes of establishing credentials, I've worked on both Capitol Hill on the House side (1995-2005), and in the Executive Branch (DoD/Army) from 2006-Present as a GS-15, including as an Army Legislative Liaison for our military construction, facility-related operations and maintenance budgets, Base Closure and Realignment programs (BRAC), and real estate management. In that roughly 26 year period, I've observed that the President's Departmental top-lines and line-item requests, are usually approved verbatim by Congress. Estimates vary by year and by Department/Agency, but it is pretty common for most Departments and Agency budget requests in most years, to be approved verbatim by Congress, between 70 to 90 percent of the time. Far from Presidential budgets being "irrelevant," I'd argue the far bigger problem is Congress' regularly deferring to the Executive Branch and the quality of its budgetary, programmatic, and policy oversight growing poorer by the year.

    It *is true* that the major legislative proposals that generate most of the media coverage, that are requested by the President, regularly fail to find traction in Congress. Getting new authorization legislation, and getting Congress to revisit entitlement programs (i.e., money automatically flowing based on statutory eligibility criteria being met), is very hard indeed.

    But on the discretionary budget, the vast majority of what the President requests, he gets. And the entitlements or mandatory budget expenditures keep on keeping on, year and after, with minimal adjustments by Congress.

    Congress' flexibility to adjust Departmental top-lines, is often severely limited based on how the Budget Resolution sets 302(b) allocations across the various Appropriations sub-committees. Even when Congress adopts an Omnibus Appropriations bill, they typically defer to the Presidential budget request, on most line items. If you look through the budget tables, you see most pages contain no adjustments to what the President asked for.

    I'm not saying Congress should be tinkering with the line items just for the sake of tinkering. But most of what the Executive Branch wants, it gets. That's a long-standing fact.

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  5. Paul and Megan Davidson

    This was posted on April 1st! You totally should’ve had Steve talk the whole time but everyone still call him Jonah and see how many people caught the joke.

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    1. Paul and Megan Davidson

      (Or did you?!)

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  6. Mark

    Regarding the comments on Biden's lack of discipline...do you seriously believe that he has the full mental capacity that he had 5-6 years ago?

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    The_Mat_Man

    Very minor quibble, but I'm fairly certain it is us INTJ folks are the ones who have to work the hardest at passing as human, not ENTJ. That said, Myers Briggs tests have issues and I put it in the "an interesting model to think about" category.

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    Sam Elder

    On the last topic, I wrote a post called "The Ethics of Waiting in Line" about some of the additional implications of Scott Lincicome's philosophy when you also value others' time.
    https://christianrationalism.substack.com/p/the-ethics-of-waiting-in-line

    If Scott's illustrative behavior is dropping his items and leaving the store, mine would be letting other people who enter the line pass you until the line is literally empty. After all, everyone's else's time should be equally valuable! That can help you estimate how much time you've wasted -- your own time and other people's -- by entering the line in the first place.

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    Sam Elder

    On the last topic, I wrote a post called "The Ethics of Waiting in Line" about some of the additional implications of Scott Lincicome's philosophy when you also value others' time.
    https://christianrationalism.substack.com/p/the-ethics-of-waiting-in-line

    If Scott's illustrative behavior is dropping his items and leaving the store, mine would be letting other people who enter the line pass you until the line is literally empty. After all, everyone's else's time should be equally valuable! That can help you estimate how much time you've wasted -- your own time and other people's -- by entering the line in the first place.

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    Michael Berkowitz

    I have a question: Do "the kids" really say "lit"? I've never heard anyone use that term outside of TD.

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