I Did That! is a phrase found on stickers typically picturing U.S. president Joe Biden pointing at the price of gasoline on fuel pumps in gas stations around the United States. The stickers are a form of political activism, asserting that his policies have led to a rise in fuel prices. The stickers have also been placed on empty store shelves. [1] [2]
The stickers began appearing in 2021 and have increased in popularity as the price of gasoline and other goods contributed to the 2021–2023 inflation surge. [3] [4]
In December 2021, Minnesota representative Pete Stauber, the ranking member of the United States House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, appeared before a virtual committee hearing with an "I Did That!" poster in the background. [5]
In May 2022, oil multinational BP withheld a quarterly bonus from a gas station owner in the state of Wisconsin because she told employees not to remove the "I Did That!" stickers from fuel pumps. The station owner told Fox News host Jesse Watters, "They go back up as fast as you knock them down. So why keep fighting the battle?" [6]
On May 18, 2022, Ted Cruz suggested that Biden was to blame for higher gasoline prices, saying, "I'll tell you what, the little stickers on gas pumps all across the country illustrate the American people know exactly whose fault this is." [7]
In June 2022, Business Insider said the stickers were "perhaps the most ubiquitous and successful piece of political propaganda that the counterculture right has produced", and they are infused with "a kind of joyful, Yippiesque delight in causing public mischief on behalf of a greater cause". [8]
The stickers are sold online by dozens of vendors, and one retailer estimated he had $40,000 in sticker sales in August 2021. [3] The placement of these stickers on private property are considered to be a form of vandalism. [9] Some gas station owners and employees complained that the stickers make some customers angry and are difficult to remove. [10]
The stickers are sold by hundreds of Amazon and other platform sellers for as low as $5.99 for 100. In June 2022, over 600 Etsy sellers are offering the classic Biden stickers. Still, they have variations, such as Vice President Kamala Harris saying, "And I Helped!", and former president Donald Trump saying, "I Can Fix that." [8]
In January 2022, NPR's Planet Money published a commentary piece by Greg Rosalsky arguing that it would be more accurate to put a "COVID did that" sticker on a fuel pump rather than the "Biden did that" sticker because the world is struggling to overcome the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted the supply chain part of the economy. The piece also acknowledged that it is legitimate to debate if Biden's 1.9 trillion dollar American Rescue Plan contributed to inflation in the US. [5]
Commentator Charles Hurt related this to former President Obama's 2012 comment that successful business owners "didn't build that". [11]
In June 2022, the CEO of the Illinois Fuel Retailers Association, Josh Sharp, said the stickers are a nuisance and even a form of vandalism. In regards to the cause of the price increase, Sharp said, "(President Biden's) canceled infrastructure projects like Keystone. I think we agree with folks about that (but) we would prefer they refrain from putting those stickers on the pumps. It's an issue for my members. They don’t like it." [12]
A filling station is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold are gasoline and diesel fuel.
A fuel tax is an excise tax imposed on the sale of fuel. In most countries the fuel tax is imposed on fuels which are intended for transportation. Fuel tax receipts are often dedicated or hypothecated to transportation projects, in which case the fuel tax can be considered a user fee. In other countries, the fuel tax is a source of general revenue. Sometimes, a fuel tax is used as an ecotax, to promote ecological sustainability. Fuel taxes are often considered by government agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service as regressive taxes.
Several common ethanol fuel mixtures are in use around the world. The use of pure hydrous or anhydrous ethanol in internal combustion engines (ICEs) is only possible if the engines are designed or modified for that purpose, and used only in automobiles, light-duty trucks and motorcycles. Anhydrous ethanol can be blended with gasoline (petrol) for use in gasoline engines, but with high ethanol content only after engine modifications to meter increased fuel volume since pure ethanol contains only 2/3 of the BTUs of an equivalent volume of pure gasoline. High percentage ethanol mixtures are used in some racing engine applications as the very high octane rating of ethanol is compatible with very high compression ratios.
E85 is an abbreviation for an ethanol fuel blend of between 51% and 83% denatured ethanol fuel and gasoline or other hydrocarbon (HC) by volume.
The usage and pricing of gasoline results from factors such as crude oil prices, processing and distribution costs, local demand, the strength of local currencies, local taxation or subsidy, and the availability of local sources of gasoline (supply). Since fuels are traded worldwide, the trade prices are similar. The price paid by consumers largely reflects national pricing policy. Most countries impose taxes on gasoline (petrol), which causes air pollution and climate change; whereas a few, such as Venezuela, subsidize the cost. Some country's taxes do not cover all the negative externalities, that is they do not make the polluter pay the full cost. Western countries have among the highest usage rates per person. The largest consumer is the United States.
The 2007 gasoline rationing plan in Iran was launched by president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cabinet to reduce that country's fuel consumption. Although Iran is one of the world's largest producers of petroleum, rapid increases in demand and limited refining capacity have forced the country to import about 40% of its gasoline, at an annual cost of up to USD $7 billion.
GasBuddy is a technology company headquartered in Dallas that offers mobile applications and websites for tracking crowd-sourced locations and prices of gas stations and convenience stores in the United States and Canada. Their platforms offer information sourced from users, gas station operators, and partner companies. They also provide business-to-business services to gas stations and convenience store owners.
In United States politics, the gas tax holiday or the gas tax loophole was originally a 2008 proposal made by presidential contenders Arizona Senator John McCain and New York Senator Hillary Clinton to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline from Memorial Day to Labor Day in the year 2008. Proponents argued that this could reduce the gas price at the pump by about 18.4 cents a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline and 24.4 cents a gallon for diesel. If it were done, it was estimated the gas tax holiday would save consumers roughly $30 over the three-month period it would be instated. However, Barack Obama and others argued that the oil companies would not significantly lower prices and would instead pocket most of the tax cut, effectively turning the cut into a tax loophole.
The United States federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. Proceeds from the tax partly support the Highway Trust Fund. The federal tax was last raised on October 1, 1993, and is not indexed to inflation, which increased 111% from Oct. 1993 until Dec. 2023. On average, as of April 2019, state and local taxes and fees add 34.24 cents to gasoline and 35.89 cents to diesel, for a total US volume-weighted average fuel tax of 52.64 cents per gallon for gas and 60.29 cents per gallon for diesel.
A filling station attendant or gas station attendant is a worker at a full-service filling station who performs services other than accepting payment. Tasks usually include pumping fuel, cleaning windshields, and checking vehicle oil levels. Prior to the introduction of self-starting vehicle engines, attendants would also start vehicle engines by manually turning the crankshaft with a hand crank.
A gasoline pump or fuel dispenser is a machine at a filling station that is used to pump gasoline (petrol), diesel, or other types of liquid fuel into vehicles. Gasoline pumps are also known as bowsers or petrol bowsers, petrol pumps, or gas pumps.
Whiting Brothers was a chain of gasoline stations established in 1926 and based in St. Johns and Holbrook, Arizona. At its peak, it operated more than a hundred filling stations, fifteen motels and various truck stops under a slogan of "quality gas for less".
In economics, shrinkflation, also known as package downsizing, weight-out, and price pack architecture is the process of items shrinking in size or quantity while the prices remain the same. The word is a portmanteau of the words shrink and inflation. Skimpflation involves a reformulation or other reduction in quality.
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one person's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.
On May 7, 2021, Colonial Pipeline, an American oil pipeline system that originates in Houston, Texas, and carries gasoline and jet fuel mainly to the Southeastern United States, suffered a ransomware cyberattack that afflicted computerized equipment managing the pipeline. The Colonial Pipeline Company halted all pipeline operations to contain the attack. Overseen by the FBI, the company paid the amount that was asked by the hacker group within several hours; upon receipt of the ransom, an IT tool was provided to the Colonial Pipeline Company by DarkSide to restore the system. However, the tool required a very long processing time to restore the system to a working state.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a worldwide surge in inflation began in mid-2021 and lasted until mid-2022. Many countries saw their highest inflation rates in decades. It has been attributed to various causes, including pandemic-related economic dislocation, supply chain disruptions, the fiscal and monetary stimulus provided in 2020 and 2021 by governments and central banks around the world in response to the pandemic, and price gouging. Preexisting factors that may have contributed to the surge included housing shortages, climate impacts, and government budget deficits have also been cited as factors. Recovery in demand from the COVID-19 recession had, by 2021, revealed significant supply shortages across many business and consumer economic sectors.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) is a United States federal law which aims to reduce the federal government budget deficit, lower prescription drug prices, and invest in domestic energy production while promoting clean energy. It was passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 16, 2022.
Groundwork Collaborative (GWC) is an American 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank and progressive advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., that, according to its website, works to "change economic policy and narratives to build public power, curb private power, and create an economy that works for all of us." The organization is best known for research, analysis, and media commentary on economic issues, such as inflation, student debt, housing, and the U.S. labor market.
The 2021–2022 global energy crisis has caused varying effects in different parts of the world.
Lindsay Alexandra Owens is an American economic sociologist and academic who serves as the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit public policy think tank. Owens is best known for her academic research of economic recessions in the United States and outspoken public commentary of the role that corporate profiteering plays in inflation. She previously served as a fellow at the liberal think tank Roosevelt Institute.
