“Never let a good crisis go to waste”: While you may have thought that phrase was coined by President Obama’s one-time chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, it was actually first uttered by Winston Churchill. He was referring to originating the UN, which seemed like a good idea at the time but not so much anymore.

Mr. Emanuel was referring to a left-wing, big-government agenda, which was a bad idea at the time and continues to be one today.

In the midst of this energy crisis, with oil and gasoline and just about every other energy price skyrocketing, President Biden has decided to favor a radical climate agenda rather than national energy security.

Mr. Biden said yesterday: “My dear mother used to have an expression, ‘Inside everything lousy, something good will happen if you look hard enough.’ We have a chance to make a fundamental turn toward renewable energy, electric vehicles … across the board.”

This sentiment has been echoed by several others in his administration. We have an inflation crisis, we have a recession crisis, and we’re financing Russia’s war machine, but the Bidens are determined to implement a crazy “Green New Deal” strategy that will never actually happen.

While Americans are suffering enormous economic and financial pain, and with more to come, the Bidens are clinging to an ideological obsession. I wonder if you find this as incredible as I do. 

They will do anything to avoid turning on the fossil fuel spigots. They’re already blowing up our strategic petroleum reserve, which is a national security measure, not a political price-fixing one. They’ve even flirted with some kind of debit card gas payment scheme.

The latest is a temporary suspension of the 18.4-cent federal gasoline tax. This, of course, is a gimmick, as even President Obama labeled it during his term. It would be set to expire after the midterm election, exposing its vote-buying purposes.

Even worse, there’s a strong chance that if they push this idea through, it will be coupled with an excess profits tax on oil companies. Shades of President Carter. 

Remember, the federal gas tax goes to the highway trust fund, which is already near bankruptcy. So, if they suspend the federal gas tax, they’ll defund roads and highways and undermine their precious infrastructure legislation.

An excess profits tax would be very bad news. We’ll get less oil and gas production, much less.

Senator Wyden wants a 21 percent tax. That would be on top of the existing 21 percent corporate tax, which would make a 42 percent marginal tax rate on fossil fuel companies.

If you tax something, you get less of it. Then again, that’s exactly what these radical climate people want. Less oil and gas.

They don’t care about high prices, middle class hardships, truckers who can’t afford to fill up their tanks. They care about electric vehicles and battery chargers. 

Even though, by the way, the manufacturing of electric vehicles and battery chargers would require substantial mining and processing that in itself would release plenty of carbon emissions into the air. 

This is one of the things that’s so absurd about this whole Biden climate story. In fact, the construction of wind and solar farms will also release plenty of carbon into the air. But I digress. 

“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” An excess profits tax is, in fact, big-government socialism, and there may be more. The president has threatened to use the Defense Production Act to somehow force more oil production and refining, or to limit exports — more big-government socialism.

The president is working with Senators Manchin and Schumer for $500 billion in renewable tax credits and perhaps other spending from the “Build Back Smaller” playbook that would be coupled with a huge tax increase, perhaps more than $1 trillion.

That would surely slam the economy into a deep recession. A bill like that would be a perfect partner with the $2 trillion spending bill of 18 months ago. Democrats would have a perfect record. They cast the votes for inflation, and now they can cast the votes for recession.

Kind of a tragedy, don’t you think, since they were handed a fundamentally strong economy from President Trump, with high growth and low inflation? 

The last thing I want to do is insult Mr. Biden’s dear mother, believe me, but I think other dear mothers might say, “Joe, where’s your common sense?” Some dear mothers out on the western range might even say, “Joe, don’t you have any horse sense?”

I’ll just say: Apparently not.

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.