Gingrich claims that “the following four tax cuts will help create jobs here and jobs now and fundamentally shift power from politicians to small business.” He also told Politico that he “has lined up the support of several members of Congress to introduce legislation incorporating his tax plan.” So here’s what we would be getting if Gingrich’s plan were enacted (all calculations after the jump):

1. Cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 12.5 percent.

As was extensively discussed during Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) failed presidential bid, cutting the corporate tax rate simply does not create jobs. According to the Congressional Budget Office, a corporate tax cut “does not create an incentive for [businesses] to spend more on labor” and “is not a particularly cost-effective method of stimulating business spending.” This cut would cost about $2.1 trillion over ten years.

2. Abolish the estate tax.

Gingrich seems to be under the impression that Paris Hilton is a job-creating machine, as this tax cut primarily benefits ultra-wealthy families making up 0.2 percent of estates. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “repeal of the tax would add $798 billion to deficits over the first decade in which its effects would be fully felt (2012-2021),” while the Tax Policy Center points out that “the estate tax can’t have much effect on hiring by small business because hardly any owners ever face the estate tax.”

3. Abolish the capital gains tax.

Gingrich has been trying to get this particular cut enacted since 1997, and claimed that it should be enacted because “this is the rate that Alan Greenspan testified was best for economic growth.” However, the notion that capital gains cuts spur economic growth is false. After the 2003 capital gains tax cut, growth in non-residential investment “only matched the historical norm.” Instead, this cut would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers.

4. A two-year, 50 percent payroll tax reduction.

The payroll tax funds the Social Security and Medicare trusts, so Gingrich’s proposal hurts the fiscal condition of both programs. (The Making Work Pay tax credit in the Recovery Act accomplishes the same thing, without hitting Social Security and Medicare.) Meanwhile, the cut would result in $926 billion in deficits over the next two years. Gingrich claims that he will pay for this with $300 to $400 billion in repealed Recovery Act money and leftover TARP funds. But there is only about $80 billion left in TARP, so this would leave more than $400 billion in unpaid deficits. Plus, repealing the Recovery money is precisely the wrong thing to do now, as it is needed to do real, practical things for the economy.

In the end, Gingrich’s plan amounts to throwing money to mainly the well-off and hoping that it will have some positive effects. That’s not what is needed to get the country out of its economic rut.

Calculations:

1. Corporate tax revenue is projected to be about $3.3 trillion over the 2010-2019 budget window. Cutting the current 35 percent rate to 12.5 percent would reduce revenue to about $1.2 trillion ($3.3 trillion x 12.5/35), resulting in $2.1 trillion in deficits.

4. Payroll tax revenue is projected to be $915 billion this year and $938 billion next year. Reducing these by half would result in a total of $926.5 billion in deficits.

RAMOS: Mr. Speaker, in your book, “Winning the Future,” you wrote, and I’m quoting, “everyone currently working in the United States illegally must return to their home country to apply for the worker visa program”…Is this realistic? Do you really think 12 million undocumented workers will voluntarily leave the United States?

GINGRICH: What I said was that we should have a program to have a legal guest-worker system. We should be very clear that we want to increase legal immigration…I think symbolically, you know, the McCain-Kennedy bill said you have to pay a $5,000 fine to the U.S. government. You can fly home, get the visa, and come back for less than $5,000. So you’re asking me — is it possible over a 2-3 year period that every person at some point go home and get the guest-worker permit — because you couldn’t do this in week. This would have to be a transition of 2-3 years. I think virtually everybody would it if they knew we were serious…

Ramos pressed Gingrich further to make sure he was serious:

RAMOS: Let me very clear about this, so you would actually ask 12 million undocumented people to voluntarily leave the United States so that they can become citizens?

GINGRICH: I’d ask them to go home, get the card, and come back. And again, how many people go home anyways on a regular basis?

In theory, Gingrich’s proposal sounds nice. In practice, his ideas spell a national nightmare.

To begin with, most undocumented immigrants don’t “go home on a regular basis.” In fact, most don’t go home at all because leaving the U.S. carries the high risk of not being able to get back in. Gingrich also doesn’t take into account what will happen to the millions of U.S. born children of immigrants or the vacant jobs and homes that would be left behind. He doesn’t provide any details on how exactly the U.S. government would be able to convince a population of immigrants who have feared few things more than deportation by federal immigration authorities that the government can suddenly be trusted overnight. Either way, it seems unlikely that a temporary worker visa that carries no promise of permanent residency or citizenship will serve as a strong incentive to uproot one’s entire family and return to an impoverished country for an undetermined number of years. Michele Waslin, Senior Policy Analyst at the Immigration Policy Center points out:

“Americans want a fair, practical solution. Expecting 12 million people — many of whom have lived and worked here for years and have US citizen children — to leave the U.S. and wait for a visa in a line that doesn’t currently exist seems rather farfetched.”

Despite his English-only stance, Gingrich has started both a Spanish-language twitter feed and website. When asked if he plans on running in the 2012 presidential race, Gingrich said he will come back and talk about it in January of 2011. Watch it:

Boucher’s new energy tax would:

1. Kill 1,105,000 American jobs per year on average

2. Increase electricity rates 90%

3. Increase gas prices 74%

4. Increase an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500

5. Send U.S. jobs to China and India

These figures are drawn from a repeatedly discredited study by the Heritage Foundation, who used an unrealistic economic model to examine the effects of a cap-and-trade system that does not resemble the comprehensive clean energy provisions of Waxman-Markey. In reality, independent experts from the Congressional Budget Office and the Environmental Protection Agency have found that the clean energy legislation will:

– Decrease electricity bills 7 percent

– Improve the budgets of the poorest 20 percent of Americans

– Cost between 22 to 48 cents a day for the average American household

– Cut global warming pollution and oil dependence

And these studies didn’t even take into account the economic benefit of averting catastrophic climate change. Furthermore, creating powerful standards for global warming pollution and clean energy create good American jobs, not kill them. Boucher’s vote was a down payment on a national investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency that would dramatically reduce U.S. global warming pollution would create 45,000 jobs in Virginia and create 1.7 million jobs every year.

ASWF’s attack exposes the conflict occuring within the American energy industry. From his perch in the energy committee, Boucher won significant concessions on behalf of the coal industry in the legislation. Some companies — like the coal-powered utilities Dominion Resources, American Electric Power, and Duke Energy — recognize that the United States must pass comprehensive climate legislation now, and have heralded Boucher as a champion of their interests. However, Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, is bankrolling the dishonest attacks of Gingrich’s group and the National Mining Association.

Newt Gingrich has taken to calling President Obama’s proposal to cap global warming pollution an “energy tax,” even specifically claiming it would be a “hidden $1,300-per-family energy-tax increase“:

If the country’s No. 1 priority is to create jobs, then a hidden $1,300-per-family energy-tax increase in the guise of a cap-and-trade system is absolutely destructive. Herbert Hoover raised taxes in 1932, and it further crippled the economy.

Newt Gingrich’s assertion is voodoo economics — designed to scare us into believing we can’t afford climate protection.

In Newt’s nightmare tax math, the economic value of the carbon market just disappears! He assumes the money doesn’t get returned to taxpayers; it doesn’t get spent on any worthwhile investments in cleaner, smarter energy resources; it doesn’t get invested in ways to reduce the energy we waste today, saving us money; it doesn’t get used to help communities adapt to a changing climate; it doesn’t get used to address regional differences in the cost of cutting global warming pollution. No, in Newt’s scary world, the money just vanishes, leaving us only with the bills. Fortunately, in the real world the dollars created by the carbon market will go to all of these purposes, providing us with a safer climate, reduced dependence on oil imports, and creating new jobs to build our economic recovery.

In reality the cost of climate protection is far smaller than the size of the carbon market, from which the $1,300 estimate is derived. The cost to physically achieve the emission reductions — i.e., the compliance costs for polluting corporations — are roughly 10% of total carbon market value, according to the Energy Information Administration. The remaining 90% is just shifting money away from polluting activities toward cleaner goods and more secure sources of energy.

So, even if Newt were right that the total carbon market size worked out to $1300 per household, the actual cost of cutting that pollution would be more like $130 per household per year (minus any savings we earn from increased energy efficiency), or $2.50 a week.

And for that $2.50 (or less) per week we’d be getting a bargain that is hard to beat.

Just four categories of climate damages alone (hurricanes, higher energy bills, property lost to sea level rise, water supply impacts) are predicted to cost the average household $2,000 a year by 2025, $3,000 in 2050, rising rapidly to over $11,000 by the end of the century. And these estimates ignore (because they are too hard to count accurately), the added costs of droughts, floods, wildfires, agricultural damages, and the value of lost lives. We may not be able to eliminate all of these costs by acting now to cut pollution, but we sure can help reduce them dramatically.

So think twice before you rely on Newt for financial advice.

Crossposted from the NRDC Switchboard.

Just as well as it did with Jimmy Carter. People don’t elect presidents who tell them to sacrifice. They elect presidents who solve problems so they don’t have to sacrifice.

If Gingrich is right, it looks like we won’t have a president for the next four years.

On June 21, 2005, McCain said of his global warming legislation:

Does it involve some sacrifice on the part of the American people? Yes. I have to tell you, every time I talk to young Americans and say, Are you willing to make some sacrifice to prevent the occurrences that we see are happening now, these young Americans are more than willing to do so.

On August 8, 2005, McCain said of the American troops serving in the Iraq war:

We must win. We must prevail. And it may require additional service and sacrifice, tragically.

On April 11, 2007, McCain said of the American troops serving in the Iraq war:

In Iraq, hope is a fragile thing, but all the more admirable for the courage and sacrifice necessary to nurture it.

On July 27, 2008, McCain again said of the American troops involved in the Iraq “surge”:

When the crucial time came as to whether we were going to leave Iraq and lose, or stay and do the very unpopular thing of 30,000 additional troops — asking young Americans to make the sacrifice — he was wrong, I was right.

Gingrich is speaking flat nonsense. The American public are not children who require false coddling and empty promises, but are proud adults who elect people who lead by example. As John F. Kennedy concluded his inaugural address:

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

Today, guest blogger Ed Paisley, Vice President for Editorial at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, explains why Gingrich’s “mark-to-market” proposal — embraced today by conservatives in Congress — would also be disastrous.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich the other day made the claim that mark-to-market accounting — the kind of free market-oriented accounting rule he and other conservatives should love — is at fault for the collapse of our financial institutions. In fact, it was a lack of government oversight — cheered on by conservatives like Gingrich — led us to this financial crisis. Now Gingrich wants us to compound the problem by removing market transparency.

Presumably, free marketeers would want commercial and investment banks to account for the value of their assets according to their value in the open market — what is known as “mark-to-market” accounting. Otherwise, how can we know what the true value of those assets are? And what better way than market-based accounting rules. That was the reasoning behind the decision last year by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to introduce mark-to-market accounting.

Gingrich – and now the conservative Republican Study Committee in Congress – want to end mark-to-market accounting for long-term assets as part of their alternative to the $700 billion financial rescue package proposed by Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson this past weekend. Gingrich and the RSC claim that no market exists for long-term assets such as mortgage-backed securities to be priced in.

That’s wrongheaded policy on two counts. First, as equity strategist Christopher Woods, an expert on the reasons behind Japan’s two-decade long economic funk, pointed out recently in the Wall Street Journal, pretending that the value of long-term assets are more valuable than the market says they are would result in financial institutions “warehousing bad debts, Japan-style.” Presumably, conservatives don’t want to engineer the non-recovery of our economy akin to what Japan has suffered since the collapse of its real estate markets in the late 1980s.

Second, the secondary market is in fact accurately pricing the value of mortgage-backed securities. Merrill Lynch & Co in July sold $30.6 billion worth of this kind of debt earlier this year at 22 cents on the dollar — probably an accurate price given that the structure of these and almost all other mortgage-backed securities. These securities contain a complex mix of mortgages (and slices of mortgages) from across the country and from a mix of residential housing. Their price reflects the value of this mix of mortgages as a package, which is exactly what all the other mortgage-backed securities contain.

That’s why the U.S. Treasury as part of the $700 billion rescue package needs to purchase troubled mortgage-backed securities in such a way that individual troubled mortgages bundled in these securities can be separated from perfectly solid home mortgages across the country. Treasury can sell the good mortgages back into the market, securing a return for taxpayers, and restructure individual troubled loans so that stressed but responsible homeowners can remain in their homes and avoid foreclosure. Treasury can then also sell these restructured mortgages back to the market once the U.S. housing market recovers.

Mark-to market accounting would then reflect the true value of the U.S. housing market, and the U.S. financial institutions wouldn’t need to follow in the footsteps of Japan, pretending bad assets are good and in the process dragging down our economy.

In the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” an ongoing joke is that the patriarch of the family solves any problem by spraying Windex on it. The equivalent among the “tax cuts are the answer to everything” crowd is cutting the tax rate on capital gains.

The latest idea from Newt Gingrich – which he pitched on Fox News last night – is to cut the capital gains tax rate to zero. He argues that cutting the capital gains tax will cause private capital to flood into Wall Street and rescue the capital markets, which will do so much good for the economy that revenue will go up. Gingrich’s proposal is echoed by the conservative Club for Growth, which today advocated suspending the capital gains tax, saying that such an action “would bring as much as a trillion dollars of capital sitting on the sidelines back into the market.”

There are, to say the least, flaws in this argument:

1. Capital Gains Cuts Mostly Benefit The Wealthy: If you care about who benefits from tax cuts, and don’t think it should mainly be the rich, and in particular if right now you’re not so crazy about cutting taxes on the people on Wall Street who are responsible for getting the country into the huge financial mess it’s in, this probably isn’t your favorite tax change. The benefits of capital gains tax cuts overwhelmingly go to those who own capital assets outside of retirement and other tax-protected accounts. By definition it is the rich who own most capital assets.

2. Tax Cuts Don’t Pay For Themselves Or Produce Growth: The idea is brought to you by the same crowd that has been promising that tax cuts for the wealthy pay for themselves since the late 1970s. Instead, these policies have produced trillions of dollars of government debt. And, for all that debt, what they haven’t produced is particularly strong economic growth. In particular, they haven’t produced the investment growth bragged about.

3. The Incentive Will Be To Change Income To Capital Gains: You may have heard about the break that hedge fund managers get. There’s an attempt to legislatively stop that, but its underlying cause is that capital gains are already taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. So people who can change, on paper, the characterization of their income from wages, dividends, interest, etc. to capital gains do so. Thus, these people don’t just get a tax cut on their capital gains income, they get a tax cut on much more of their income than that. That’s what accountants are for. If you think it’s bad now – with a capital gains rate at a little less than half the rate of ordinary income – imagine if the rate were 0%.

4. Capital Income Won’t Be Drawn Into The Market: The notion that this will draw capital income into the stock market is an odd one. Where does Newt think these people are putting their money now? Under their beds? This money would have to come from somewhere. If it’s interest bearing accounts, the banks would be hurt by as much as Wall Street benefited. If it’s treasury bills, the cost of government borrowing will go up. And there’s nothing about a capital gains tax cut that brings back money invested overseas — the break would apply to capital income, no matter where it’s earned. No, a capital gains tax cut doesn’t produce money out of thin air.

5. There Aren’t Profits To Be Had: And, the truth is, the wealthy who are supposedly going to flood Wall Street with their money aren’t going to unless they think they’re going to make money. And if they aren’t, then they wouldn’t have to pay any capital gains taxes anyway. No, the problem with the market isn’t that people are worried about paying taxes on their profits. The problem is that they don’t think there are profits to be had.

6. The Incentive Will Be To Sell: A 0% capital gains rate would in fact be a disaster for the market. One virtue of having a tax on capital gains is that it dampens volatility and promotes longer-term investing. That is, if you pay tax on profitable trades, you’re less likely to make moves based on short term movements on the market. Given the uncertain times we face, it’s far more likely that a zero rate on capital gains would prompt a massive exodus from the market than a massive entry into it. In fact, if you think about it, the immediate motivation of a 0% capital gains tax rate is to sell – not buy.

7. There Will Be No Incentive To Save: We worry all the time about insufficient savings in this country for retirement and education. One of the ways in which we encourage saving is to create no-tax retirement and education accounts. If all accounts are no-tax, money will likely not be put into these forms, which it’s much harder to pull out of.

The Green Jobs Now Day of Action is this Saturday, September 27. Thousands of Americans will be calling for investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and job training for people who are ready to get to work building a more just and sustainable economy.

Newt Gingrich’s “Solutions Day” is this Saturday, September 27. He’ll be calling for more drilling, privatizing health care and Social Security, and slashing corporate taxes.

Who will you join this weekend?

UPDATE: Adi at 1Sky reports: “We’re up to 558 events in all 50 states!” At SolveClimate, David Sassoon writes: “And the coalition now has a secret weapon: Patrick, and his caulk gun. Shock and Awe has met its match.”

“Solutions Day” should really be called Pollution Day. The game plan recommends that volunteers to “invite local elected officials” and reach out to “key, state-level bloggers,” and “taxpayer groups, such as Americans for Prosperity” to gather people at “workshops” listening to Newt Gingrich speak (webcast, DISH Network—219, and Direct TV – Channel 577). Americans for Prosperity, as readers of the Wonk Room know, is yet another fossil-fueled right-wing front group.

On September 27, Newt will sell this radical right-wing agenda using talking points designed by propaganda master Frank Luntz:

Energy Gingrich’s Drill, Baby Drill plan to continue our suicidal pollution-based economy will be bolstered by Regnery Publishing’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” book and “We Have the Power,” a movie by Newt’s wife being distributed by Citizens United, the right-wing hate group run by Whitewater hit man David Bossie.

Economy Gingrich claims to be in favor of “real investments for long-term growth to create the best jobs, with the best take-home pay, and with the greatest prosperity for safe pensions and retirements.” However, the economic agenda of ASWF and its allies in fact includes defeat of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would restore bargaining rights to workers against corporate intimidation; the abolishment or slashing of taxes that only affect the superwealthy, such as the estate tax (”death tax”) and corporate tax; and the privatization of Social Security (”Personal Social Security Savings Accounts”).

Education ASWF is promoting Bob Compton’s documentary “Two Million Minutes” and calling for increased science and technology education. This emphasis hides Newt’s radical agenda of privatizing government services, bringing religion into schools and forcing all immigrants to learn English.

Health Under Newt Gingrich’s drug company-funded Center for Health Transformation, ASWF will push its agenda to protect corporate malpractice (”tort reform”), to break down Medicare and Medicaid, and to make health insurance more expensive (”consumerist health care“).

Download Newt’s “Action Pack” here. To fight back on Newt’s day of pollution, join the Green Jobs Now Day of Action, for real solutions, not more pollution.

Newt’s book oozes with false sympathy for working Americans:

The suffering of Americans due to high energy prices is bad enough. But there’s more: powerful people believe that Americans — everyday folks just trying to earn a living, feed their families, and help others — are actually the root cause of the energy crisis. These influential people — many of them the very same individuals who helped create the energy crisis in the first place — have little compassion for the suffering of their fellow countrymen.

Who are the “influential people” who “helped create the energy crisis in the first place” Gingrich and Haley blame? Is it Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, Enron, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Coal, Tom DeLay, John McCain, hedge-fund speculators, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich himself, or others in the conservative elite who have profited from skyrocketing energy prices and prevented change while American families suffered?

Nope! The villians in Newtland are “anti-energy, left-leaning politicians.”

Well, we launched at American Solutions a petition drive called “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” to make the obvious point that if you used America’s energy resources and you didn’t have to buy oil from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia it’d be a lot less expensive.

Gingrich’s “obvious point” is an obvious lie. The United States has only two percent of the world’s oil and gas reserves but uses 24 percent of production. Under Bush, domestic drilling has surged — but so have oil prices. The only sufficient American energy resources to get off foreign oil are efficiency, wind, solar, and other unlimited, renewable energy.

He then outlined the next roll-out of his propaganda campaign, building on the current petition drive and YouTube contest with a book release on September 22 and a movie release coinciding with “Solution Day” on September 27.

Watch it:

The book, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less, blames “anti-energy, left-leaning politicians” for the energy crisis, absolving Gingrich, Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, Enron, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Coal, Tom DeLay, John McCain, hedge-fund speculators, and others in the conservative elite who have profited from skyrocketing energy prices and blocked reform while the rest of us suffer.

The movie, We Have The Power, extols the virtues of nuclear power in a visit to Three Mile Island and stars Newt’s wife Callista as she talks with industry lobbyists.

Gingrich’s false “Solution Day” coincides with the Green Jobs Now Day of Action. Go to the website — GreenJobsNow.com — to fight for real solutions, not more pollution.

Interestingly, she’s the first journalist ever to be nominated, I think, for the president or vice president. She was a sportscaster on local television, so she has a lot of interesting background.

Watch it:

Gingrich, a Ph. D. historian, should know that claim is laughably false. There have been at least two presidents and two vice presidents who were professional journalists before being elected to office, most recently Vice President Al Gore:

Albert Gore, Jr. 45th U.S. Vice President (1993-2000), and Democratic nominee for president, 2000. Gore served as an Army journalist at Fort Rucker and in Vietnam from 1969 to 1971 and became an investigative reporter for the Tennesseean upon his return. [Biography.com]

Warren G. Harding 29th U.S. President (1921-1923). Harding was the publisher and editor of the Marion Daily Star (Ohio), before entering political office. [Grolier]

William Howard Taft 27th U.S. President (1909-1912). Taft worked briefly as a legal reporter with the Cincinnati Times and the Cincinnati Commercial. [Encyclopedia Britannica]

Charles W. Fairbanks 26th U.S. Vice President (1905-1908). Fairbanks co-edited The Western Collegian at Ohio Wesleyan University and worked for the Associated Press in Pittsburgh after graduation. [1904 Republican National Convention]

This was, of course, a much smaller confabulation by Newt Gingrich than those of his billionaire-funded “Drill Here, Drill Now” 527 campaign to place American energy policy deeper in the clutches of Exxon Mobil.

(HT: Richard Cohen)

UPDATE: Gingrich repeated the false talking point on Fox News the same day, without any equivocation:

She didn’t go to an elite school, she’s not from Princeton or Harvard or Yale, she went to the University of Idaho. On the other hand, she’s the first journalist ever to be named to a national ticket. I think, as a journalism major, she’s going to raise some very interesting questions for a lot of reporters.

Watch it:

But Republicans have a golden opportunity here to turn the tables back on the Democrats. All they have to do is give a basic economics lesson every chance they get. The American people aren’t stupid; they will get it. The lesson is this:

If the Democrats really wanted to cut the profits of Big Oil, they would vote to…increase the supply of oil! Oil company profits are so high because the price of oil is so high. The price is so high because demand is so much higher than supply. Allowing oil companies to drill for more oil will increase supply, which will lower prices, which will lower oil company profits!

By this logic, the CEOs of oil companies should be fired for violating their fiduciary duty to their shareholders, since they are the ones leading the call for expanded drilling:

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said it’s “nonsensical” to oppose lifting domestic drilling moratoria.

Shell CEO John Hofmeister said the offshore moratorium “has denied U.S. oil companies the opportunity to produce more hydrocarbons.”

ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva called for lifting the offshore moratorium, saying, “We cannot just wish fossil fuels away.”

Chevron CEO David O’Reilly said Bush should have “lifted the moratorium with a presidential order.”

Cline’s argument is embarrassingly nonsensical. If we pretended for a minute that proven U.S. oil reserves could magically be multiplied overnight by ten times to match U.S. demand, the money flowing into the coffers of oil companies wouldn’t change, since their profits are a product of both price and production. The decrease in price would be balanced by the increase in production. That’s the “basic economics lesson.”

Of course, even if the moratoria were lifted today, and even if oil companies could fast-track exploration and drilling, the oil found would only change U.S. production by a few percent — not 100, 1,000 or 10,000 percent — and would have little to no impact on oil prices.

The oil companies and those paid to promote their agenda are the only ones who would benefit from lifting the moratoria. Big Oil will use the additional leases to pad their inventories, and in decades sell the oil on the global market. And the oil-fueled right wing will continue to peddle their propaganda.

UPDATE: Newt Gingrich (ASWF) also thinks oil CEOs should be fired:

For the first time, there will a beneficiary of the ASWF propaganda campaign who isn’t a right-wing millionaire or oil executive. But checking the contest details reveals the meager prize:

The contest winner will receive a $2,500 gift card, or a series of gift cards totaling $2,500 from a major gasoline provider in the United States.

So the prize is really $2,500 that goes to an oil company. Is it even, as Newt promises, worth “free gasoline for an entire year”? Probably not.

The average American’s gas bill in 2006 was $2,227 — when gas was $2.58 a gallon. But a gallon of gas is now $3.80, a nearly 50% increase. ASWF’s $2,500 gas card won’t pay for a year of gas unless prices fall back to $3 a gallon — or the winner cuts back driving significantly. If gas stays at $4 per gallon in 2009, the average household will be looking at a bill of about $3,500 $3,300. So Newt’s propaganda contest is really more likely to turn out to be “Drill Here, Drill Now, Drive Less” for its one “winner.”

Just like the hoax that offshore drilling would help Americans pay less at the pump, or the absurd claim that conservative propaganda has affected the price of oil, even Gingrich’s YouTube contest is built on cheap promises. If Newt wanted to offer a genuine prize, he’d give away a Tesla electric sportscar. If Newt actually cared about Americans, he’d support relief for every driver, such as a “reliefbate” paid for by closing oil subsidy loopholes or by implementing a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

Of course, filling the gas tank isn’t an issue for the backers of ASWF’s agenda. It takes Sheldon Adelson, the right-wing kingpin who’s given ASWF more than $3 million, less than ten seconds to make $2500 from his Chinese casinos, and it takes Exxon Mobil less than two seconds.

Digg it!

UPDATE: $4 gas, as kiweagle notes in the comments, translates to an average gas bill of approximately $3,300 a year. $4.30 gas gives a gas bill of approximately $3,500 a year.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has completed his journey from “maverick” to the heart of the right-wing/Big Oil movement. His travels began last month when he abandoned his longheld opposition to offshore drilling. With increasing ease, McCain is shilling for the oil industry’s agenda. In today’s appearance before the Urban League, McCain said:

Last month, the President finally lifted the executive ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, and called on Congress to lift its ban as well. Lifting that ban could seriously lower the price of oil — and Congress should get it done immediately. We need to “drill more, drill now, and pay less at the pump.”

McCain is being “cruelly misleading” when he pretends ending the moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf drilling “could seriously lower the price of oil.” Only a month ago, McCain was honest about how useless it would be, saying “I don’t see an immediate relief,” just “a psychological impact that I think is beneficial.”

The old, straight-talking McCain has hopped a ride on the low-road express. McCain is raking in the Big Oil millions, and oil-industry lobbyists such as Nancy Pfotenhauer have taken control of the campaign. He’s using the “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” slogan of Newt Gingrich’s 527 corporation American Solutions for Winning the Future — the type of organization McCain once tried to ban — while Gingrich is in closed-door meetings with right-wing representatives and attacking Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) on Fox News. Rush Limbaugh counseled McCain to embrace the AWSF campaign on June 13, four days before McCain announced his support for offshore drilling:

It’s that simple. Drill here. Drill now. Pay less. We’re the United States of America. We can do it.

The day after McCain flipped, Rush gave his approval:

All right, all right, all right, drill here, drill now, pay less. Drill here. Drill now. Pay less. Folks, this is the issue.

Behind this common agenda is the same network of right-wing financiers that propelled Bush into office. There are 14 Bush Pioneers — the top fundraisers who bundled over $100,000 in contributions for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 — backing Newt Gingrich’s ASWF:

Fourteen Bush Pioneers, who funneled over $2 million to Bush’s election, have contributed over $4 million to Newt’s ASWF. Eight of those same right-wing money men are top McCain fundraisers, channelling $2 million into his coffers. Four — including top ASWF contributor Sheldon Adelson — are billionaires. Their agenda is all about “Winning the Future” for themselves.

UPDATE: In the question-and-answer period at the Urban League, John McCain dismissed the truth that lifting the offshore drilling moratorium couldn’t “seriously lower the price,” appealing to his talks with “the actual people that do the work, that are in the business”:

So I disagree with those experts and I’ve talked to the actual people that do the work, that are in the business that say within months and certainly within a very short time, we could have additional oil supply for this nation. So we ought to drill now.

Watch it:

Friends of the Earth: “By all appearances McCain has lost touch with reality.” The Sierra Club: “Senator McCain may ‘disagree with the experts,’ but that doesn’t make the facts go away.”

Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, became one of the top funders for Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) this June, with a contribution of a quarter of a million dollars. IRS documents reveal that Peabody’s donation of $250,000 on June 9 — days after fossil-industry senators blocked global warming legislation — came on top of an April contribution of $25,000 from Peabody’s top Washington lobbyist, Fredrick Palmer:

Peabody, World’s Largest Coal Company, #4 Backer Of American Solutions For Winning The Future. Newt Gingrich’s 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, has received $275,000 in contributions from Peabody Energy, Inc. As of July 1, 2008, the world’s largest private-sector coal company is ASWF’s fourth highest contributor. [IRS, $250,000 6/16/08, $25,000 4/30/08]

Last year, a front group backed by Peabody smeared Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius (D) as a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for denying an air permit to new coal plants because of their potential global warming pollution. When challenged, Peabody declared, “We are pleased to support the message.”

On July 23, Peabody reported record profits of $242.6 million and record sales of $1.53 billion for its second quarter, on surging coal prices. Its 59.8 million tons of coal sold are responsible for about one percent of the world’s total global warming emissions that quarter.

Peabody Energy’s vision for “America’s Energy Future,” with U.S. coal consumption doubling by 2025, is shared by ASWF, as its “Platform Of The American People” attests:

– To combat the rising cost of energy and reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, we support the United States using more of its own domestic energy resources, including the oil and coal it already has here in the U.S.

– We believe the United States should increase its use of coal because it is a domestically available energy source, is less expensive than imported foreign oil, and new technologies have dramatically reduced emissions from burning coal, as well as making it much less harmful to the environment.

– We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible.

– We believe in using United States domestic energy sources such as clean coal and oil, even if it means drilling off our coasts and in Alaska, as well as offering tax credits for American businesses that develop new energy sources.

The fossil-fuel-dependent future that Peabody Energy is promoting through Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” billionaire-backed front group is catastrophic, as it “ignores the nightmarish damages that would be caused to our air, water and climate.”

In the words of NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen, “Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link.” ASWF is just the latest of these fossil-fueled front groups. Hansen concluded:

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. Conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation, if we pass on a runaway climate to our children.

We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices) by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries.

The Wonk Room has covered in depth how the “solutions” promoted by “environmentalist” Newt Gingrich: increased offshore drilling, oil shale mining, coal-to-liquids, and tar sands — would be ecological disasters without economic benefit, except for Big Oil executives and their even wealthier investors. That group has likewise prospered richly under Bush, while the rest of the nation falls into disrepair.

So who is behind ASWF? The key funder is right-wing casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson, who has pumped over $3 million into the organization since its beginning in 2006. Adelson is flanked by 56 other such donors who have given at least $10,000. Donors can give unlimited amounts to this 527 corporation, making it an ideal mechanism for the superrich to influence the presidential season. In the first of a Wonk Room series, we discuss the seven right-wing billionaires bankrolling this “non-partisan” organization:

SHELDON ADELSON

Net Worth: $26.0 billion
Donations to ASWF: $3,066,340
Bush Pioneer

The Casino Kingpin

BACKGROUND: The third richest man in America, Adelson made his first millions with the dot-com trade show Comdex, then purchased the Las Vegas Sands Hotel and Casino, tearing it down to construct the Venetian in 1999. Since he took the Sands Corporation public in 2004 and began establishing casinos for the Asian market in Macao, his wealth has ballooned at a rate of “almost $1 million an hour” to $26 billion, mostly in China. A major GOP donor, Adelson sits on the board of the “conservative Republican Jewish Coalition.” Armed with, in his language, a “big pair of brass monkeys,” Adelson “is fiercely opposed to a two-state solution” in Israel. In addition to supplying over $3 million to ASWF, Adelson co-founded Freedom’s Watch, a “big neoconservative slush fund” with ties to the American Enterprise Institute.

QUOTES:

“You know, I am the richest Jew in the world.” [New Yorker, 6/30/08]

“We’re the largest investor of any kind in the history of China.” [New Yorker, 6/30/08]

On AIPAC’s support for aid to Palestinians: “If someone is going to jump off a bridge, it is incumbent upon their friends to dissuade them.” [Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/15/07]

“Why is it fair that I should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than anyone else?” [New Yorker, 6/30/08]

CARL LINDNER

Net Worth: $2.3 billion
Donations to ASWF: $650,000
Bush Pioneer

The Banana Republican

BACKGROUND: Carl Lindner, Jr., “a Cincinnati businessman with international interests ranging from banking to bananas, is one of the nation’s wealthiest men” and “gives heavily to political campaigns.” He built a dairy empire into the holding company American Financial Group, making giant profits off the savings and loan industry, junk bonds, and Chiquita Brands International Inc., where he “oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group.” Using political connections in the 1990s, “Lindner opened European markets for Chiquita bananas,” but “it came at a high cost: more expensive goods for American citizens; the threat of fewer jobs in industries that buy American-manufactured steel; and certain economic instability for Caribbean and African nations and its citizens.”

GEORGE ARGYROS

Net Worth: $1.7 billion
Donations to ASWF: $25,000
Bush Pioneer

Mr. Ambassador

BACKGROUND: Making a fortune in Orange County real estate, Argyros diversified into interests such as the Seattle Mariners, the Apria home health-care giant, and the investment firm Westar Capital. Argyros’s real estate company, Arnel Management Co., gouged thousands of tenants out of millions of dollars in security deposits and illegal fees. After raising $30 million for George W. Bush’s election, Argyros was appointed ambassador to Spain in 2001, despite not even speaking the language.

QUOTES: On the unpopularity of the Bush administration in Spain: “It’s not always easy when people aren’t in agreement with all the questions, but they’ll never be in agreement with everything — not even my wife.” [El País, 2/6/04]

“It’s an especially opportune time for exporters, since the U.S. is essentially on sale because of the low dollar.” [Orange County Business Journal, 3/04]

“The bombings, which were tragic in Spain, on that Thursday of March 11, certainly had an effect on the elections in Spain. And that was the intended purpose of the bombings. The timing could not have been better as far as the Al Qaeda is concerned.” [Fox News, 6/23/05]

STANLEY STUB HUBBARD

Net Worth: $1.6 billion
Donations to ASWF: $100,000

The TV Guy

BACKGROUND: The Hubbard Broadcasting Company, founded by Stanley E. Hubbard in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, has become a television giant under the stewardship of his son, Stanley S., who spent the 1980s working to make digital satellite television a reality. He dominates Twin Cities politics and media, calling up news anchors if he disagrees with their coverage, and his corporation, which owns the Reelz channel, is a consistent enemy of unionization.

QUOTES:

“You know, blacks obviously are just as good as whites and they need to hear that . . . I think Jesse Jackson is the single worst enemy of the black people. If he didn’t have people thinking they weren’t good enough, he wouldn’t have any followers.” [Corporate Report Minnesota, 1/91]

“If I couldn’t work here, I would do anything. I would work at anything. My wife and I talk about it, if we couldn’t be here, we would be hired help. . . . I would be a butler and she would be a maid. We don’t have a problem, but so many do when it comes to finding good help. I think we would know how to treat people.” [Corporate Report Minnesota, 1/91]

“Well, I think the thing [my father] taught me and taught all of us, more than anything else, was integrity, that the number of the byword in this world is integrity. You tell the truth, you don’t lie, you don’t cheat.” [CNN, 6/24/96]

PETER THIEL

Net Worth: $1.2 billion
Donations to ASWF: $100,000

The Techno-Libertarian

BACKGROUND: A self-described “staunch libertarian” who made his first millions as a co-founder of Pay Pal, 40-year-old Stanford-educated Peter Thiel has become a hedge fund billionaire by betting on rising oil prices and investing in dot-coms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. In the words of Wired journalist Alexis Madrigal, Thiel supports a “deep, crazy future, where you would be able to do whatever you want — radical freedom — the Internet as tool to absolutely transform both your body and the government.”

QUOTES:

“In the culture, everything’s forced toward a shorter time horizon. As a libertarian, I tend to blame the government for a lot of this, because socialized welfare, socialized health care, and socialized retirement programs all encourage people not to think about the future.” [Reason Magazine, 5/1/08]

RICHARD T. ‘DICK’ FARMER

Net Worth: $1.0 billion
Donations to ASWF: $100,000
Bush Pioneer

The Right-Wing Rag Man

BACKGROUND: Cincinnati’s other billionaire, Dick Farmer owns Cintas Corporation, the “nation’s largest uniform rental company.” With deep ties to Washington conservatives, Cintas has successfully fought environmental and labor regulations for its industrial laundries. However, its continued union-busting, labor abuses and even postal fraud are costing the corporation millions in fees. In the 2000 election cycle, “Farmer gave $721,000 to the Republicans, making him the second-largest individual donor to the GOP.”

QUOTES:

“I don’t expect any special treatment when I give my money. All I want is decent government.” [Cincinnati Enquirer, 1997]

“If you think I’m giving money to get access to [President Bush], you’re crazy. I’m just trying to get the right guy elected. That’s all I care about.” [Washington Post, 3/17/04]

ROGER MILLIKEN

Net Worth: $1.0 billion
Donations to ASWF: $10,000
GOPAC

The Globalist Protectionist

BACKGROUND: Milliken is a “billionaire textile magnate from South Carolina, founding member of the conservative movement, and patron of right-wing causes for almost 50 years” — from William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater to Richard Nixon and Newt Gingrich. Fiercely anti-union and proud of his company’s “culture of secrecy,” Milliken also is famously protectionist. In 1994, Milliken funneled over $2 million to Pat Buchanan to fight the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and aid his 1996 run. However, as Ryan Lizza wrote in the New Republic, “Although Milliken is the chairman of the Crafted With Pride in the USA Council, the union and business coalition that has spent millions on ads suggesting that imports are hurting the economy, for decades now he has bought only foreign-made machinery to produce his American textiles.”

Newt Gingrich has recently been advancing policy proposals for reducing poverty in America. Gingrich’s description of the poverty problem reveals a condescending approach to the poor, while his tried-and-failed market-based solutions do little to help Americans living below the poverty line.

First, Gingrich assumes that poor people are culturally inferior. According to Gingrich, poor people need to develop a culture of “productivity” and that when they are around people who have money, they “learn very rapidly to show up at work on time, to actually keep part of their paycheck every week, to do all the things successful people do.” In short, poor people don’t work hard enough, don’t work well enough, and don’t save. However, the reality is:

– Full time minimum wage workers live below the poverty line. The federal minimum wage is simply not a living wage.

- Poor Americans do not work less than poor people in other nations.

- Low income people are experiencing the big squeeze of working longer hours, including multiple jobs and extended overtime just to make ends meet.

- By definition, poor people have less income to save. They are less likely to have employer-sponsored retirement plans or benefit from tax breaks that primarily go to middle- and high-income people. They pay more for basic financial services.

The second faulty assumption is that poverty is a black and urban issue. Gingrich chooses to frame his ideas about poverty around Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, and the city of Detroit. Otherwise, he refers to Native Americans living on reservations. Although such frames are an effective tool in diverting attention from troubling issues facing the U.S. economy, serious discussions about ending poverty can not be based on stereotypes or reinforce the idea that it is someone else’s problem. The reality is:

– Although poverty disproportionately affects people of color, all races are impacted, including whites who are the largest group (45 percent) amongst the poor.

- Rural communities experience levels of poverty that are similar to urban communities—14.5% and 17% respectively. And poverty also reaches the suburbs.

Not surprisingly, one of Gingrich’s primary suggestions is to cut taxes for corporations and the rich so that they will create more jobs. Nearly eight years of such tax cuts under the Bush Administration has increased the poverty rates and demonstrated that this is not a valid policy solution. Similarly, Gingrich’s proposals to encourage kids to work at the age of 14 and to only spend two or three years in high school would probably advance the contrary goal of creating an undereducated permanent underclass, but not get us very far in ending poverty.