From Michelle Malkin, “Several Republican members of Congress are asking constituents to send in their gas receipts” to be presented to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). The leader of this campaign is notorious global-warming denier, oil-industry apologist, and false populist Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who has received over one million dollars in lifetime contributions from the oil and gas industry:

Please mail me your gas receipts and a short note about what your family has had to sacrifice because of out-of-control prices at the pump. I’ll bundle together all the receipts and stories I receive and send them to Senator Reid. Together, we will send a message to Washington and show Harry Reid that high gas prices are hurting Oklahomans.

Please mail your gas receipts by August 21 to:
Jim Inhofe
PO Box 13300
Oklahoma City, OK 73113

Several right-wing congressmen are jumping into the game: Geoff Davis (R-KY), Lee Terry (R-NE), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Bill Sali (R-ID), and Randy Kuhl (R-NY).

In June, Steve Chabot (R-OH) performed the stunt, confronting Speaker Pelosi on June 26 with a “few dozen” receipts. Pelosi’s spokesman said that Chabot should support honest solutions, including the “Use It or Lose It” legislation to force oil companies to explore existing leases. Jon Porter (R-NV) performed the stunt in July.

In fact, every single one of these seven congressmen voted against the Use It or Lose It legislation (H.R. 6251), and have a record of taking Big Oil’s money to do their bidding:

Pelosi and Reid should accept the gas receipts — and collect hundreds of thousands more to match up to the millions in industry contributions these stuntmen have received. Then they should march to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and deliver them to the one man most responsible for today’s energy crisis: President George W. Bush.

Our guest blogger is Adam Jentleson, the Communications and Outreach Director for the Hyde Park Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

John McCain has released a new ad attacking Obama on taxes. Watch it:

Here are a few things that McCain’s new ad fails to mention.

If McCain’s health care plan raises taxes enough to avoid blowing a hole in the deficit — as his aides say it does — it would raise taxes by $1,119 on a family making $60,000 within five years. A family making $80,000 a year would see their taxes go up by almost $2,000 in the same period.

And while McCain proposes large tax cuts, they are even more skewed towards the elite than President Bush’s. Nearly half of his tax cuts would go to big corporations and the top 1 percent of taxpayers. More than 100 million families would not receive any tax cuts at all from McCain’s plan.

While Americans are paying nearly $4 a gallon for gas, McCain’s plan gives $4 billion in tax breaks to the 5 biggest oil companies in the U.S., including a $1.2 billion break for ExxonMobil.

In sum, McCain’s plan is the one that benefits the elite at the expense of the middle class. But don’t take our word for it – here is what the Tax Policy Center at Brookings has to say:

The two candidates’ plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain’s tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those whose taxes fall would, on average, see their after-tax income rise much less. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers. The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution, while taxpayers with the highest income would see their taxes rise.

Last month, Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin attempted to promote McCain’s economic plan by explaining that “the Wall Street guys are in a world of hurt,” while “the Main Street guys are hanging in there.”

Today, Holtz-Eakin tried have it both ways. He first justified McCain’s plan to extend the Bush tax cuts by saying that Main Street is “hurting very much.” Minutes later, though, he suggested that on Wall Street “there’s a world of hurt,” while Main Street “has been hanging in there remarkably well.” Watch it:

Holtz-Eakin is wrong about Main Street hanging in there “remarkably well.” He is also citing Main Street’s economic pain as a reason to extend tax cuts that overwhelmingly help the wealthy. In addition to making Bush’s tax cuts permanent, McCain has proposed $300 billion in budget-busting tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-rich.

To ease some of Wall Street’s suffering, McCain has proposed a $175 billion tax cut for corporations. This would give America’s 200 largest corporations $45 billion in tax breaks and send America’s five largest oil companies $4 billion every year.

Just like under George Bush, with McCain’s economic plan Wall Street wins, while American families lose.

In a new report from the Center for American Progress, Senior Fellow Scott Lilly chronicles the “extraordinary transfer of wealth that took place between ordinary households and the extremely well-to-do” during the past eight years under President George W. Bush.

Under Bush’s mismanagement, workers’ real wages have declined even as corporate profits have skyrocketed, bountiful surpluses have been squandered into deep deficits, and the real engine of sustainable American growth — the middle-income American family — is straining under household debt, record gas prices, and the spiraling costs of health care.

Check out these charts from Scott Lilly’s report:

- Household incomes are down:

- Corporate profits are up:

- The richest 1% of Americans experienced the greatest income growth:

And yet, McCain wants to double Bush’s tax cuts for corporations and the richest Americans, increase the deficit with budget busting tax breaks, and burden middle class families with a flawed health care scheme that would raise taxes on many and deliver worse coverage to most. For American families, Senator McCain would do a heckuva job.

The Washington Post published an editorial today slamming a proposal to swap a slight amount of oil from the government’s oil reserves to moderate prices and offer relief to American families. They write:

Mr. Obama would swap more-expensive light crude held there for cheaper heavy crude “with the goal of bringing down prices at the pump.” President Bill Clinton did such a swap in September 2000 — yes, just before another presidential election — and President Bush released oil in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. Both moves led to drops in the spot price of crude but not the sort of relief at the pump that Mr. Obama promises.

This seems to imply that lower crude prices didn’t lead to lower prices at the pump for families. But that’s just not the case.

In 2005, when President Bush announced a sale from the SPR in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, American families saved approximately $125 in lower gas prices over the next three months.

Read the full report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund here.

Our guest blogger is Charles Territo, Director of Communications for the Auto Alliance (BMW, Chrysler, Ford, GM, Mazda, Mercedez Benz, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Toyota, and Volkswagen).

For most of this year rising gas prices have been on everyone’s mind. Believe me, the auto industry understands very well just how much of an impact $4/gallon gas has had on American consumers. As you may have seen, it’s having an impact on us, as well.

Last week, the Auto Alliance and the National Auto Dealers Association sponsored tire pressure checks for members of Congress and their staff who park in the Rayburn Office Building. Surprisingly, we found that most drivers had tires between 5 and 7 pounds under inflated — some had tires under-inflated by as much as 20 pounds. This significantly reduced their vehicle’s fuel economy.

We all share a goal of increasing fuel economy, as well as enhancing energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the fuel economy increases passed last year by Congress (and supported by the Auto Alliance) will help. But consumers want ways to fight back against high gas prices right now. By properly inflating tires, we can have an immediate impact on the more than 245 million vehicles currently on our nation’s roads and highways.

Earlier this year, we cosponsored the Alliance to Save Energy’s Drive Smarter Challenge. As part of this campaign we advocated maintaining proper tire pressure as one simple step consumers could take to increase fuel economy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It’s more important than you may think. For instance, did you know…

• The Department of Energy estimates that 1.2 billion gallons of fuel were wasted in 2005 as a result of driving on under-inflated tires.

• Fuel efficiency is reduced by 1% for every 3 PSI that tires are under-inflated.

• Proper tire inflation can save the equivalent of about 1 tank of gas per year.

• Proper tire inflation also reduces CO2 emissions.

• Experts estimate that 25% of automobiles are running on tires with lower than recommended pressure, because people don’t know how to check their tires or don’t realize that tires naturally lose air over time.

Maintaining proper tire pressure may not solve our dependence on foreign oil, but it will help. Consumers can get a few more miles to gallon, and when combined other driving and maintenance tips, those small steps can help to make a serious improvement in vehicle fuel economy.

Digg it!

In their new book, ‘Grand New Party,’ Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam urge the GOP to refocus on shoring up the economic well-being of the American family.

But in a review of the book in the New Republic, Robert Gordon points out that, while many politicians on the left are already heeding Douthat and Salam’s advice, John McCain certainly isn’t.

One place this is clearly evident is in John McCain’s tax plan, which showers money on corporations and the super-rich while leaving middle class families and their kids high and dry.

According to Tax Policy Center figures, McCain’s plan is worse than his opponent’s for the bottom 80% of American families with children and far, far worse for the bottom 40% of families with children.

As Gordon explains:

McCain has “one break for most families–the expansion of the dependent exemption–but that proposal is worth more than twice as much to a millionaire as to a median family, and because it is not refundable, it is worth nothing to poor families and little to many in the working-class.“

Read Gordon’s full piece here.

American families are struggling with high gas prices, even as oil companies rake in record profits.

One way provide relief for families would be to release a small amount of oil from the 98 percent full Strategic Petroleum Reserve. President George H. W. Bush dipped into the Reserve to stabilize prices during the run-up to Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and President George Bush did so again in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The oil sold from the reserve in both cases helped stabilize oil markets and lower gas prices.

A new analysis of these two releases by the Center for American Progress Action Fund finds that, in the 100 days after each release, American families enjoyed significant savings on their gasoline bills. These savings amounted to $65 per household after the 1991 Desert Storm release, and $125 per household after the Hurricane Katrina release in 2008 dollars.

Read the full report here.

Clearly many other factors intervened that may have caused changes in gasoline and oil prices in the winter of 1991 and the fall of 2005, but the release of a relatively modest amount of oil from the SPR contributed in large part to the drop in oil prices, the moderation of gasoline prices, and the savings that American families enjoyed.

Read more benefits of releasing a small amount of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves here.

The Labor Department reported today that the “U.S. unemployment rate rose to the highest level in more than four years.” According to the data, “the unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent,” total employment “fell by about 72,000 jobs and unemployment rose by 285,000.” The average hourly earnings rose by just 0.3% to $18.06 per hour, “far behind inflation.” Bloomberg reports:

The last time the unemployment rate climbed so much in four months was in 2001, when the U.S. was last in a recession. Job losses have combined with decreasing property values, stricter lending rules and near-record energy prices to send consumer confidence levels close to the weakest in 16 years in July.

In light of the new data, economists predicted that “the labor market is likely to remain weak, if not deteriorate a bit further.” Indeed, from year to year, unemployment has increased, suggesting that the economy “is in a recession, probably a shallow recession“:

As the middle class continues to struggle from “the weakest job growth since the Great Depression, flat wages, and declining benefits,” corporate profits are at an all time high. Unfortunately, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) only seeks to add to corporate profit, arguing that cutting corporate taxes by $175 billion will make American corporations more competitive and help American workers. But today’s job figures make it abundantly clear that corporate gains are not trickling down to workers. What’s needed is a stimulus for the middle class, not a tax cut that will go towards corporate profit.