Yesterday, Senate conservatives voted down bipartisan legislation that would have “provided an additional $2.5 billion in funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP),” a federal program “that helps low- income families pay their cooling and heating bills.”

Arguing that “the chamber should focus on crafting a comprehensive plan to address high energy costs before taking up specific pieces of the debate,” conservatives insisted that drilling for more “gas and oil” would do more to help struggling families pay for heating oil.

Watch a compilation video of conservative senators pushing the false myth that drilling will help low-income families pay their heating bills:

But drilling for oil will do nothing to “alleviate and bring down those natural gas prices for us.” As the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has explained, “access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.” But because United States demand for oil far outstrips production — we consume 25 percent of the world’s supply but have two percent of the proven reserves — further exploitation of domestic resources will not have a long-term impact either. After 2030, the EIA found, “any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.”

This winter, the “average cost of heating a home…will total about $1,114 – 14.6 percent more than last year,” forcing “low-income families [to] spend on average about 15 percent of their income on home energy bills.” Unfortunately, rather than voting for substantive relief, conservatives continue to propagate false myths for political purposes.

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At an event at the Tax Policy Center last Wednesday, McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin defended the draconian cuts to spending required to balance McCain’s budget and pay for his tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy by saying:

The reception among the Washington establishment has been one part disbelief — because, oh my god, no one actually does that in Washington (that’s not true they’ve just forgotten) — and one part horror that he might succeed. Well, the horrified folks better get ready.

Listen here:

The “Washington establishment” aren’t the only folks who are horrified by what would need to be a 40% cut in non-defense domestic spending. Here are some others:

–340,000 kids who’d lose Head Start funding

–2.1 million grade-school students who’d be effectively cut from Title 1 school funding

–1.6 million aspiring college students who’d lose access to Pell Grants

–3.4 million families who would lose WIC assistance for low-income women, infants, and children

Better get ready.

Our guest blogger is Robert Gordon, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today, the McCain campaign is putting forward economist Martin Feldstein as a surrogate.

Feldstein is widely acknowledged as the “chief intellectual force behind privatization” of Social Security. That’s Feldstein’s own term. He wrote “The Case for Privatization” and “Privatizing Social Security: The Ten Trillion Dollar Opportunity.”

McCain personally endorsed Bush’s privatization plans as recently as March, but yesterday, he said “there is nothing I would demand” in a Social Security package and even said that tax increases are not “off the table.”

“Social Security privatization may be another example of the McCain campaign’s private agenda — the agenda the campaign keeps to itself.

Our guest blogger is Daniella Gibbs Leger, the Vice President for Communications at American Progress Action Fund.

Last week I attended the UNITY Conference in Chicago. Along with over 7,000 journalists of color, I was wondering why Sen. John McCain would pass up the opportunity to speak to such a large gathering of reporters, and now we have our answer. He was busy getting ready to flip-flop on affirmative action. On ABC’s This Week, McCain reversed himself and came out in support of Ward Connerly’s attempt to end affirmative action in Arizona.

Ten years ago, McCain called a similar ballot initiative “divisive.” But back then he wasn’t running for President, trying to appeal to wary conservatives. McCain’s explanation for this flip is that he “doesn’t support quotas.” That’s great. But that’s not what Connerly is trying to outlaw.

Connerly is on quest to not allow public institutions to “…grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin, in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.” That’s not about quotas, Sen. McCain.

Perhaps he didn’t read the referendum first. But as the Senator from Arizona, I would expect him to know the details of such a controversial ballot initiative in his home state. I look forward to hearing the Maverick McCain explain his way out of this one.