Democrats ran on a promise to make life more affordable for voters, but one of their top priorities after the election would drive energy prices higher. Moreover, their first opportunity to act on this priority will come well before the new Congress is sworn in.
“The war must end,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the day after the election. “We are going to end the war.” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has been even more specific about how Democrats plan to do it. “I think we deal with the funding and we use that to end the war,” Gallego said last week. “I think that’s the strongest thing we could do.”
The next funding deadline is sooner than many realize. Congress must pass legislation to fund the entire government, including the Pentagon, before Dec. 11. Gallego and his Democratic allies have identified that vote as their most powerful point of leverage.
Cutting funding for the Pentagon now, however, would hurt consumers. U.S. armed forces have escorted more than 3,000 commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz in the past six months. More than 24 million barrels of oil a day are flowing through the strait and along alternative routes across the region, about a million barrels a day more than before the war.
Ships are protected around the clock by two aircraft carriers and more than a dozen guided-missile destroyers. The vessels are setting modern-day deployment records, and the war costs taxpayers $2 billion a month. The “war,” if one can still call it that, now consists of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and blockading Iranian ports. If they cut funding for the Department of Defense, Democrats will hand the Strait of Hormuz back to Iran.
If Tehran regains control of the strait, it could decide which tankers get through, charge them for passage, or choke off shipments altogether. Even the threat of disruption would raise shipping and insurance costs, and a sustained cutoff would drive up the price of oil. Americans would pay more to fill up their cars and heat their homes, and higher diesel costs would make it more expensive to deliver everything from groceries to building materials. Democrats promised to bring down the cost of living. If they cut off funding before securing free passage through Hormuz, they risk betraying that promise with one of their first acts.
Democrats also promise to renew their efforts to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Cabinet official we, too, have criticized. But while impeaching Hegseth would make Democrats feel good, it would do nothing to change the strategic situation in the Strait of Hormuz. We would still need to spend billions of dollars a month on the military force necessary to prevent Iran from terrorizing ships passing through the strait.
CALIFORNIA VOTES TO STAY UNAFFORDABLE
Democrats should consider how voters really feel about the Iran war. The most recent Fox News poll shows that 60% believe starting the Iran war was the wrong decision, while a separate Harvard/Harris poll shows that 67% of voters say Iran should not be allowed to control the Strait of Hormuz.
The war is now a fight over who controls the strait. If Congress cuts funding for that fight, it hands control of one of the world’s most important shipping lanes to a violent and desperate regime. Voters wish Trump had never started the war, but they are clear that Iran should not control the strait. Democrats who promised to lower the cost of living should think hard before giving Tehran the power to drive up prices at every gas pump in America.