American Solutions is re-launching Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less for one big reason:  President Obama’s continuing war on American energy is dramatically increasing the price of gas and diesel.

To be fair, President Obama is in favor of drilling…but just not in the United States.

His numerous bans, restrictions, and proposed taxes are hamstringing America’s ability to produce more oil and gas and are thereby increasing gas and diesel prices.  In fact, even the federal government projects that domestic oil production will drop by 220,000 barrels per day in 2011 due to the President’s anti-drilling agenda.  Production in 2012 will drop even more.

If we produce less oil, we will produce less gasoline, which means higher prices at the pump.

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President Obama’s announcement yesterday that he struck a tax compromise with Senate Republicans that will temporarily halt the automatic income tax hikes that were due to hit all Americans. Although the President announced the compromise with little excitement, saying he was “sympathetic” to the idea of fighting to raise taxes on high earners instead of striking a deal, the proposed plan is a small win for a sluggish economy that is saddled with 9.8% unemployment. But we need many more wins, and much larger ones, before the economy can recover and thrive.

In addition to preventing income taxes from rising on January 1, 2011, the plan includes a temporary two percentage point cut in employee payroll taxes, from 6.2% to 4.2%. That cut is also effective for employer contributions, reducing the overall Social Security tax from 12.4% to 10.4% for 2011. The White House says this tax cut will save families an average of $1,500 next year.

The compromise also locks the death tax rate in at 35% for two years, a provision strongly opposed by President Obama, who has called for raising the death tax significantly in previous budget plans.

The deal is an acknowledgment by the White House that in troubled economic times it is good for working people to keep more of their money to spur job creation. Mr. Obama recognized this connection when he announced the deal. “Make no mistake,” the President said yesterday, “allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family and that could cost our economy well over a million jobs.”

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President Obama unveiled his latest economic proposal in Cleveland recently in a desperate attempt to boost the Democrats’ fleeting hopes of maintaining control of Congress this November.  But after two years of massive government spending and job-killing policies, the damage has already been done and it’s clear this fall’s election will be boiled down to a simple choice: job killers versus job creators.

With unemployment at 9.6%, the American people are clamoring for candidates with a solutions-oriented agenda for job creation as an alternative to the job-killing policies of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini described it this way: “I think this group does not understand what it takes to create jobs.  And I think they’re flummoxed by their experiment in Keynesian economics not working.”

Simply put, candidates who propose job-creating policies and show how their opponent’s policies are killing jobs will win decisively in 2010.

American Solutions has already put forth its Jobs Here, Jobs Now, Jobs First plan, so let’s examine the top 10 job-killing policies of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine.

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If you’re the President of the United States or one of his political appointees and you’re ideologically opposed to new oil and natural gas development offshore, what do you do when the public registers its overwhelming support for new drilling in public opinion polls?

You dance, delay, and deceive. You speak melodious words about seeking the wisdom of the public in making these decisions and then ignore evidence of the public will when you get it, or worse, you hide it.

First came the dance.  In August 2008, after soaring gas prices and a dramatic shift in public opinion caused President Bush, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain to reverse their positions on offshore drilling, then-Senator Obama also changed. The Democratic presidential nominee reversed his own position and that of his party, saying he was open to offshore drilling as part of an overall energy plan.  The Democratic Congress followed a month later by quietly dropping the 25-year Congressional ban on offshore drilling.

Then came the delay. In January 2009, President Obama inherited a draft five year offshore drilling plan prepared by the outgoing Bush administration.  The plan was already receiving public comment as part of the elaborate rule making process followed by federal agencies.  Ken Salazar, Obama’s new Secretary of Interior, determined the decision about new offshore drilling was so important that he ordered a six-month extension to the comment period.

Third comes the dishonesty.

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