HP4150 Rubber Flap causing paper jams?!?

[ralphasher]

I bought a HP DeskJet 4150 at Best Buy before Christmas for the rare occasions I print/scan. Since I bought it, it's rarely printed correctly; the paper starts to feed, then jerks "off course" and gets jammed. I finally opened the printer up and found where the paper goes off course.

The red circles in the photo is a little black rubber flap, maybe 0.5" wide and 0.25" tall, with a little slit in it, and it sticks up where the print head goes across the paper. So the paper gets fed down to that flap, the paper gets stuck on the flap, then the feed-forward mechanism is causing the paper to go off track.

What the heck is that thing? Should it be sticking up there?

Do I need it? Should I just take a utility knife and cut that thing out? It seems like it should be there... but I literally cannot print with it in the way.

[ralphasher]