President-elect Barack Obama would do well to resist the corporate-friendly urgings of the advisers who persuaded him to scrap his proposed windfall profits tax on Big Oil.

The fact that oil prices have fallen well below $40 a barrel from a high of $147 a barrel in mid-2008 is not a valid reason for scrapping a plan to retrieve a small part of the obscene profits the oil industry raked in when prices were sky-rocketing.

Then and now a windfall profits tax would have provided a wonderful and fast-acting economic stimulus for the people who need it the most. Indeed, Obama originally proposed using it to help fund a meaningful rebate to middle class and poor American families.

Gas prices are unlikely to rest long on their current low plateau. In fact, oil industry indicators already are pointing to a future rise in the price of oil triggered by production cutbacks in oil producing nations and a resumption of high demand in high-growth nations like China and India.

Obama promised to use funds from the windfall profit tax to help middle-class and lower-income Americans stung by the usurious gas prices earlier this year.

Americans were forced to pay not only higher prices for fuel but for basic food staples that increased in price due to Big Oil's money grab. Obama promised American middle class families a $1,000 rebate garnered from the windfall profit tax to offset the cash Big Oil grabbed from their wallets at the gas pump last summer.

During the campaign, Obama said he would "put a windfall profits tax on oil companies and use it to help families pay their heating and cooling bills and reduce energy costs." After securing the White House in November, Obama went back on his word to the majority of Americans who were convinced he was a man who would do what he said.

Obama's message of "Change" now appears to be changing his mind about the lofty promises he made on the campaign trail. He certainly has discarded his pledge to deal with Big Oil's excessive profits.

Rather than rescind the departing administration's infatuation with the oil patch, he now wants to do everything he can to help an industry that effectively turned the executive branch into its wholly owned subsidiary for the last eight years.

The claims by oil and gas producers that the recent drop in oil prices has hurt their ability to explore and innovate are almost laughable.

Unfortunately, Obama, who was swept into office by a huge and enthusiastic progressive turn-out, now seems more attuned to the bellyaching of few, select oil company chieftains than the growling hunger pangs of millions of Americans struggling to put food on their tables.

Granting Big Oil a stay of execution on a windfall profits tax does nothing to advance a move away from carbon-based fuels in America. As a consequence, environmentalists have become justifiably skeptical about his promises to move America to a "green economy." Weaning America away from carbon fuels, after all, was a keystone of Obama's presidential campaign.

There can be little doubt that the post-election Obama has shifted his concerns away from the working-class base that propelled him to a landslide victory -- replacing them with the special-interest agendas of Big Oil moguls like T. Boone Pickens.

As middle-class and poor Americans struggle to recover from the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, Obama seems intent on shunting them to the back of the breadline -- behind the very fat cats whose greed for excessive profits created the current economic debacle.

Rather than acting like a latter-day FDR, he is disappointing his loyalist base with actions that hark back to the hapless measures carried out by the ineffectual Herbert Hoover. He can get back on the right track by reviving his windfall profits tax proposal.

Wayne Madsen is a contributing writer to the progressive Online Journal. (McClatchy-Tribune Information Services)