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.

To avoid the justified political blame that comes with rising gas prices while having no coherent policy to develop more American energy and lower prices, President Obama and his allies in the Congress are now scrambling to show that they’re trying to lower gasoline prices.

But instead of arguing for more American energy to lower prices, they’re arguing for more taxes on oil and gas companies, which will only raise gas prices even more as new energy taxes will simply be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher gas prices.

So here’s President Obama’s bottom line argument for how to lower gas prices:  higher gas prices will lead to lower gas prices.

Somewhere George Orwell is smiling.

But there is in fact a cruel logic to President Obama’s argument.  The more Americans have to spend on gasoline, the poorer they will be and the less they will be able to afford driving.  Higher gas prices also means a less robust recovery from the Great Recession.

So poorer Americans and economic stagnation will lead to lower overall demand for gas and diesel and put downward pressure on gas prices.

That’s President Obama’s strategy for lower gas prices:  higher taxes, declining incomes, job loss, food stamps, and economic stagnation.

But Americans don’t want this future.  We want lower taxes, more take home pay, more jobs, higher economic growth and lower gas prices.

Yes, we want all of these outcomes, which is why Americans overwhelmingly support more domestic drilling for oil and gas to lower our energy prices and create more jobs.

It’s time to drill here and drill now.

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.”

Let’s hope the President heeds this lesson about the link between lower taxes and job creation if and when the economy starts to improve and job creation recovers. If not increasing taxes is good in a bad economy, not raising taxes is also good in an improving economy. And if the President is really in the lesson learning frame of mind, he’ll soon come to understand that lowering taxes is even better for job creation.

Yesterday’s announcement also provides some limited measure of investment certainty for business. The economy is not likely to ignite based on a two year horizon of tax certainty, but at least individuals and businesses don’t start next year with tax hikes and at least know their rates are locked in for two years.

Yesterday’s compromise was not only necessary, but also unusually practical.

The deal was brokered by a President who has pushed repeatedly for higher taxes on American businesses (income tax changes as well as cap and trade and Obamacare) and a lame-duck Congress still controlled by liberal Democrats. The fact that a deal was struck to provide across-the-board tax relief suggests that the President and his allies in Congress may finally be getting the message that voters voted explicitly against big government in November, of which higher taxes are a necessary prerequisite.

With the principle that low taxes are good for workers and job creators now firmly established on a bipartisan basis, the burden now falls on President Obama and the new Congress to begin work next year to make lower taxes and smaller government a permanent reality.

This work includes reducing the size and scope of the federal government through a comprehensive replacement strategy where decades of liberal government is replaced by policies and processes that allow business to create jobs and allows taxpayers to keep more of their hard-earned money.

This includes reforming regulatory authority at agencies such as the EPA where unelected bureaucrats are trying to impose by executive branch regulations what our elected officials refused to pass legislatively (i.e.,  global warming taxes).

It means converting unemployment compensation to a work and training program so people who need jobs actually increase their skills instead of just receiving unemployment checks.

It means stopping wasteful spending in Washington, starting with a ban on earmarks, a return to 2008 spending levels, and passing a long overdue balanced budget amendment.

And it means creating incentives for businesses to come to America and thrive. Yesterday’s tax compromise was a good first step, but only permanent tax relief on income, dividends, and capital gains coupled with permanent regulatory reform will signal to the world that the United States is the best place to invest. Passing the Economic Freedom Act is one example of what’s necessary to create this pro-business, pro-jobs environment.

Doing all of this would both create jobs and effectively address our deficit and public debt problem. The quickest way to tackle the deficits is to cut unemployment in half through job creation and by a reduction in federal spending.  It is not by raising taxes.

The reason Washington is in the red financially is not because taxes are too low, but rather because spending is too high and government is too big. Cutting spending and allowing businesses to thrive means more jobs and less debt.

Next year the new Congress, which has been energized by Tea Party support and by newly elected officials committed to lower taxes and smaller government, should build off yesterday’s small victory for American workers wake up every morning and ask themselves how they will work to spur job creation in America.

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.

1.    $1 Trillion ObamaCare
Despite being law for less than a year, ObamaCare has already had a devastating impact on the economy.  For example, Milwaukee-based Assurant Health is eliminating 130 jobs due to the new healthcare law, while one of Iowa’s largest companies, Deere & Company, said ObamaCare will cost them $150 million.  AT&T, meanwhile, was hit with $1 billion in new costs related to the law.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg.  According to a study from the National Federation of Independent Business, within the first five years of ObamaCare over 1.6 million jobs will be lost because of the employer mandate alone.

2.    $800 Billion Failed Stimulus
Despite having no basis in economics—and widely mocked as unserious—the Obama administration foolishly continues to claim the stimulus “saved or created” millions of jobs.  However, for a far more accurate characterization look no further than the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which calculates that more than 2.5 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus became law.  If you factor in jobs “lost and dislocated,” that number could be as high as 4 million.

3.    Cap and Trade Energy Tax
According to the Heritage Foundation, Waxman-Markey, the House-passed version of cap and trade, could kill more than 1 million jobs per year, raise annual energy costs by $829 for the average family, and increase gasoline prices by $1.38 per gallon.  The Senate version of cap and trade, Kerry-Lieberman, is equally destructive.  A study by Chamberlain Economics found the Kerry-Lieberman bill would kill 522,000 jobs in 2015, and up to 5.1 million jobs by 2050. Families would also face an additional burden of $1,042 per year as a result of the bill.

4.    2011 Automatic Tax Increases
If the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are not extended by January 1, 2011, then a $3.8 trillion tax increase will hit every American who pays income taxes.  According to the Tax Policy Center, expiration of these tax cuts will increase the average tax filer’s burden by $1,368 per year.  Additionally, analysts at Deutsche Bank predicted that GDP could drop by as much as 1.5% if the tax cuts expire.  Just last week, 31 House Democrats sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer indicating their support for extending all of the tax cuts.

5.    $13 Trillion National Debt
If you add up the massive expansion of government outlined in this list and elsewhere, the national debt has increased by $2.4 trillion under President Obama’s watch to a total of over $13 trillion.  Even worse, the White House projects the national debt to double by 2020 to over $26 trillion.  As CBS News’ Mark Knoller wrote, “If you could buy stock in the National Debt, do it. It’s headed for the moon.”

6.    Financial Regulation
The recently passed financial regulation legislation did nothing to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants that helped trigger the financial crisis.  It did, however, guarantee future bailouts of large companies that fail, forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for private companies’ mismanagement.  In the end, government control of America’s financial system will help London, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Shanghai and other foreign financial centers while killing jobs and reducing economic activity in the United States.  Predictably, four out of five Americans believe the legislation will not help avoid another crisis, a Bloomberg poll found.

7.    Death Tax
Under current law, the death tax is zero for 2010.  But if the Obama-Reid-Pelosi machine gets its way and Congress doesn’t act this year, the death tax will jump to 55% next year.  This would devastate small businesses and family farms by forcing them to sell off assets, land, or lay off workers in order to pay the massive death tax levy upon the death of a family business owner.  According to a study by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, permanently repealing the burdensome death tax would create 1.5 million jobs.

8.    Big Labor’s Card Check
Card Check, otherwise known as the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), is the top legislative priority for big labor and their allies in Congress.  It is an enormous power grab by union bosses that would strip workers of their right to decide by private ballot whether to join a union, and their right to freely negotiate their contract.  According to a study by noted economist Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar, for every three workers coerced into joining a union under Card Check, one job will be eliminated. That means an estimated 600,000 jobs could be lost due to Card Check in the first year alone.

9.    Drilling Moratorium
The Wall Street Journal uncovered internal White House documents that show the Obama administration foresaw its moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico would kill 23,000 jobs, but proceeded with the ban anyway.  In addition, rigs are already leaving the Gulf for countries like Egypt and the Republic of Congo, taking hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in future revenue with them. The company that owns the rigs cited the “uncertainties surrounding the offshore drilling moratorium” as the reason for the relocation.

10.    No 2010 Budget
The Democrats’ failure to pass a budget in 2010 – at a time when America’s small businesses are being forced to make tough choices in order to survive – reinforces their irresponsible big spending approach to governance.  If they can’t even pass something as basic as a budget, how can they be trusted and taken seriously to create jobs?  If Congress believes it can speak for working men and women who live on fixed incomes, then it needs to start acting like it.

November 2nd can’t come fast enough.

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.

In April of 2009, during a discussion about offshore exploration in San Francisco, Salazar said that President Obama directed him to “to make sure that we have an open and transparent government” and that “these are not decisions that are going to be made behind closed doors.” Salazar went on to say that President Obama wanted to make sure that DOI was “maximizing the opportunity for the public to give us guidance on what it is that they want to do.”

Yet, more than four months after the comment period ended, the Department of the Interior has failed to make any public announcement about the results, even though sources have told American Solutions for months the comments show a 2-1 advantage in support of offshore drilling.

It took American Solutions almost four months and the power of the Freedom of Information Act to finally uncover indirect confirmation that, out of over 530,000 comments submitted, pro-drilling comments outnumbered anti-drilling comments by a 2-1 margin.

In an email dated October 27, 2009, Liz Birnbaum, director of the Minerals Management Service, informs other Interior officials that a preliminary tabulation of the results of the comment period had not yet gone to Secretary Salazar, adding “[s]o the Secretary can honestly say in response to any questions that he’s [SIC] has not yet seen the analysis of the comments – staff is still working on it. I did, however, confirm to him the 2-1 split that these guys [at American Solutions] are emphasizing.”

When a public employee is on record condoning purposeful deception of the American people, the taxpayer should no longer have to fund his or her job.  Secretary Salazar should immediately fire Liz Birnbaum for purposefully deceiving him, and in turn, the American people.  It’s not possible for the Secretary to honor pledges of openness, honestly, and transparency in government if his staff is going to deliberately undermine such pledges.

Public opinion polls already measure near 70% support for offshore drilling, so the results from a public comment period that reflect the same public sentiment should not be surprising.  But after all this talk of wanting the public’s input, Secretary Salazar and his team must find it a real stumbling block to have to explain all their anti-energy development actions in light of the comment period results to which they previously attached such great importance.

This newly gained insight into the anti-energy exploration mindset within the Department of the Interior allows a new perspective of President Obama’s mention of offshore development in his recent State of the Union address.  Here is the one paragraph in which the President described offshore development:

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.  It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.  It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.  And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

To the passive listener, it sounded like President Obama expressed at least rhetorical support for offshore drilling.

But the President only says we must make “tough decisions” on offshore drilling, deliberately refusing to apply that standard to other decisions on energy.

But tough for whom? Certainly not for the public that overwhelmingly supports more offshore drilling.

Indeed, the only person facing a tough decision is the President since an important part of his political base is opposed to new American energy development.

Bucking public opinion would indeed be a tough decision for this President, but he has shown himself quite comfortable with bucking public opinion to pursue stunningly unpopular policies on health care and cap and trade.

In short, it’s a fair conclusion that the tough decisions the President identified in his State of the Union was his intended decision not to pursue any new offshore oil and gas development. The actions by Salazar and his team are entirely consistent with that conclusion.

What makes all of this dispiriting, especially this month, is that with 15 million Americans out of work and with the President’s recently submitted budget projecting trillion dollar annual deficits for the next ten years and a near tripling of the national debt by 2020, the President is throwing away a golden opportunity over the next three decades to create millions of new jobs and generate more than $270 billion in annual economic growth from new oil and gas development, including $54 billion annually in federal tax receipts that could help lower the federal deficit and the national debt.

These extraordinary benefits of job creation and economic growth – all without requiring any federal spending – are, sadly, not on President Obama’s agenda, notwithstanding all the phony rhetoric to the contrary.

Indeed, we can look forward to the President’s continued strategy of dance, delay, and deceive.