Vice President Joe Biden was in North Carolina today and I heard one of his comments on the radio just now. He was telling his selected audience how interested he and President Obama are in helping the middle class. They’re so interested, in fact, that they’ve created a task force for just that purpose.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I wanted to do something to help the average American I’d be looking at ways to reduce the price of gasoline. Most everyone in the United States drives. Only in a few select cities can you get by without owning a vehicle, so a policy of attacking high gas prices in almost every way possible would seem to be a good way to help the middle class.

Here’s a helpful visual aid:

As you can see, the annual cost for the average American driving an average car (12,500 annual miles, 25 miles per gallon) has doubled since Obama took office.

Obama and Democrats in Congress, however, have for 30 years opposed adding refining capacity, opposed increased drilling in the continental U.S., opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opposed offshore drilling, and opposed the Keystone XL pipeline project that would bring oil from Canada almost immediately. Each of these would have increased supply, and, as anyone who knows anything about economics (unfortunately, that does not include Democrats and liberals) will tell you, increased supply leads to lower prices.

Yesterday, in a very defensive speech about gas prices, Obama ridiculed the notion of a return to $2 gas (as if anyone has even proposed that), and a White House spokesman just said on the radio that Republican proposals for more drilling are just “pixie dust.”

For 30 years, every time gas prices spike due to hurricanes or Mideast turmoil, Democrats have scoffed at the notion of drilling as an answer. “Why, it would take 10 years for that oil to come on line,” has been their argument. Well, it’s been 30 years. Imagine if we’d actually begun drilling and exploring 30 years ago. How much would the middle class be paying for gasoline today?

Yesterday, Obama said algae could be the answer to our problem. How many years will it take for pond scum to be a viable fuel source? A lot more than a decade, I’ll wager.