▪️There is some truth to this meme, but it takes the numbers and trends out of context. According to the EIA, U.S. domestic oil production is expected to avg 12.76M barrels/day (bpd) by the end of the year, although those are projections, not actual numbers.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-crude-output-rise-record-1276-mln-bpd-2023-eia-2023-08-08/
▪️But under Trump oil production was already over 13M bpd by 2020. In Feb ‘20 it was at 13.1M and on track to avg well over 13M that year. Production then plunged during the pandemic & the yearly avg never got there. So basically oil production has returned to late 2019 levels and will probably reach early 2020 levels by next year.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCRFPUS2&f=W
▪️Keep in mind, when Trump came into office in 2017 oil production was at just 8.9M bpd, so it saw a dramatic nearly 50% rise to reach 13M in just a few years. The current levels are just returning to pre-pandemic levels with small growth projected in the future.
▪️Meanwhile, domestic oil consumption is forecast to rise to 20.5 bpd by 2024, meaning there’s still room for rapid growth just to meet US needs, let alone the rest of the world. We need more than another 50% growth just to keep up with growing demand,
▪️With $80+ oil (compared to $50-60 under Trump) a president would really have to clamp down to keep companies from taking advantage of the 60% price increase. It would take draconian restrictions to keep companies from producing more oil at these prices.
▪️Which, thankfully they haven’t done yet. So despite Biden’s stated promise to “end fossil fuels” in 2019, he hasn’t, likely for pragmatic reasons. The meme is correct in pointing out what few people know (oil production could soon reach record levels) but ignores that the administration’s rhetoric is also openly hostile to domestic oil production.
It’s bizarre to see them seesaw back and forth that Trump is totally clueless and aloof, just golfing all day, then all of a sudden he’s a dangerous king/dictator who’s diligently plotting to seize absolute power.
▪️This one is frustrating because, while it’s nice to see the vigor and speed that DOGE is acting with, they’re also sloppy with some of their findings. This is not some bombshell, millions of dead people’s SS numbers aren’t being paid out to fraudsters.
▪️This problem has been known for some time, you can read an inspector general’s report from 2015 about millions of names on the SS “numident” not being correctly annotated for deaths, even though they were older than 112 (the oldest known American at the time).
https://oig-files.ssa.gov/audits/full/A-06-14-34030_0.pdf
▪️There are innocent explanations for some of these. Expatriates that died outside the country, for example. Or immigrants given temporary work permit who returned to their country, people issued new numbers for various reasons, etc. However, most are simply due to the govt not diligently keeping track of deaths.
▪️It’s embarrassing that the govt has millions of numbers on the numident that are ...
