It seems that every day the Obama Administration appoints a new czar to cover a major issue. To date, he’s appointed as many as 33 (there’s so much mystery surrounding who is and is not a czar that it’s hard to tell). That means, he’s appointed more czars than ever ruled Russia.
This evening, Jack offered an amendment (text here) during a mark up in the Appropriations Committee which would have withheld funding from any czar who has not been confirmed by the Senate. While that amendment was defeated, we’re going to keep on fighting until we get the accountability and transparency President Obama promised when he entered the White House.
Why should the American people trust these folks be given so much power to affect important policy areas without having to go through the same review we require of hundreds of Administration officials with much less power?
Jack appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning to discuss the need to focus the government’s efforts on creating jobs and revitalizing the economy. To view a clip of the interview, click below:
Free market labor reform group presents Congressman with worker-friendly award based
Congressman Jack Kingston (R/GA-1) today was honored by the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) in being named a “Guardian of Worker Freedom.” The free-market, worker-rights presented the award for Congressman Kingston’s work in favor of worker’s rights and free and open labor markets.
After a successful experiment last year, President Bush announced today that he would again open “Thanksgiving Express Lanes” and that the program would be expanded. From a White House fact sheet:
Today, President Bush visited the Department of Transportation (DOT) and discussed measures to improve air travel, both during the upcoming holiday season and in the future, and highlighted his Administration’s transportation safety record. Over the holidays, millions of Americans will take to the roads, railways, and skies to visit loved ones. For too many travelers, though, it means long delays, cancellations, and lost bags. Today the President announced new measures that bolster the Administration’s those problems.
This year, the military is expanding “Thanksgiving Express Lanes” to areas of the Midwest, Southwest, and West Coast, including the skies over Phoenix and Los Angeles. As they did last Thanksgiving, the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense will make military airspace available for use by civilian airliners over the holiday season – but this year even more airspace will be open, and it will be available for a longer period of time.
The Administration has also launched an unprecedented effort to reduce air congestion by boosting flight capacity at some of America’s busiest airports. DOT has completed 13 major airport improvement projects, including 11 new runways. This week, three more runways (for a total of 14 during this Administration) will open at Seattle-Tacoma, Washington-Dulles, and Chicago-O’Hare.
The Administration is working with the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration to make more staff available to speed up check-in and boarding and to help passengers affected by cancellations and delays.
DOT has completed new regulations that provide increased protections for consumers. Recent actions include requiring airlines to provide greater compensation for lost bags and imposing tougher penalties when airlines fail to notify travelers of hidden fees. We expect these new rules to take effect in December, in time for Christmas and the New Year.
CQ Today reports that there’s a growing consensus that it’s time to reform entitlement spending. According to the article:
A “16-member group, brought together by the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution and the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, suggested that lawmakers enact specific long-term budgets for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security that would have to be reviewed every five years.”
“The group also suggested instituting a ‘trigger’ that would force changes to the programs, such as tax increases or benefit cuts, if the costs grow beyond levels set in the long-term plans. The changes could be averted if Congress explicitly voted to prevent them or to adopt alternative changes.”
Despite this, congressional Democrats have refused to act. Earlier this year, a trigger put in place by House Republicans brought no action from Democrat leadership and no indication that they plan to do anything to address the issue.
The financial condition of the Social Security and Medicare programs remains problematic. Projected long run program costs are not sustainable under current financing arrangements. Social Security’s current annual surpluses of tax income over expenditures will begin to decline in 2011 and then turn into rapidly growing deficits as the baby boom generation retires. Medicare’s financial status is even worse. This year Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is expected to pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures than it receives in taxes and other dedicated revenues. The difference will be made up from general revenues which pay for interest credits to the Trust Fund. Growing annual deficits are projected to exhaust HI reserves in 2019 and Social Security reserves in 2041. In addition, the Medicare Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund that pays for physician services and the prescription drug benefit will continue to require general revenue financing and charges on beneficiaries that grow substantially faster than the economy and beneficiary incomes over time.
Speaker Newt Gingrich spoke at Jack’s Theme Team meeting this morning and presented this handout to the members. As always, Speaker Gingrich captivated the audience and discussed his efforts to transcend political parties and tackle the issues facing our Nation. If you havent’ checked out his new organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, you really should.
The Republican Conference tonight adopted a proposal originally drafted by Jack along with Reps. Wolf and Wamp to establish a Joint Select Committee on Earmark Reform. The bill, H Con Res 263, would establish a committee comprised of 16 members equally appointed by the majority and minority parties in both houses of Congress to study earmarks in all their forms - appropriations, authorizing, tax and tariff, as well as those contained in the administration’s budget request. To read the release that accompanied the bill’s introduction, click here.
Yesterday, Jack addressed the House during debate on HR 2419, the 2007 Farm Bill.
While he praised the committee for working with our office and other members of Georgia’s congressional delegation to ensure that issues facing cotton, peanuts, and fruits and vegetables were addressed with sound legislation, Jack raised a number of concerns.
Tax Increase - The Democrats’ proposal would significantly increase taxes. The benefits of the proposed tax increase would not go towards helping our Nation’s farmers but towards expanding entitlement programs. In addition, it was not vetted through the House Ways and Means Committee which is charged with reviewing and reporting on any legislation that would change the tax code.
Food Stamp Privatization - As reported to the House, the bill blocks the privatization of USDA services, a major blow to states like Indiana which have sought to privatize their food stamp program as a means to reduce government bureaucracy and get more money to the people who benefit from the program. As the Republican Ranking Member of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, Jack has participated in a number of hearings on privatization and found that many in the agriculture community support the initiative.
Union Payoff - The bill would also require plants producing ethanol to use unionized employees, thereby increasing the cost of achieving energy independence for America.
FSA Office Closings Blocked- The bill blocks the closings of Farm Service Agency county offices, an initiative of the FSA to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy in order to get more funding and better services to its customers. Currently, 58 offices have now employees but continue to cost the American taxpayers an estimated $3 million dollars annual which could go towards improving services provided to family farmers across the Nation.
HR 2419 passed the House today, by a vote of 231-191. As his concerns were never addressed, Jack voted against the bill.
Jack sponsored the Motion to Recommit on HR 2771 which would have returned the bill to the Committee on Appropriations with instructions to remove $16 million in funding for the former FDA building now known as Federal Office Building 8. Yesterday, members were denied the chance to debate the merits of the building when the Democrat-controlled House Rules Committee refused to allow Jack’s amendment during debate on the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. Unfortunately for the American taxpayers, the vote failed 181-217 (click here to see how members voted).
In his remarks, Jack reminds members that there has been no debate on using this building as “swing space” during renovations to the Cannon and Longworth House Office Buildings. He also notes the more than $140 million that has already been spent by the executive branch to clean and gut out the building. Moreover, the total cost for the House to use the space is closer to $84 million in addition to the $12 million annually that would be paid in rent. The building also violates the “carbon neutral” goal of Speaker Pelosi.
Perhaps the $741,000,000.00the Democrats have authorized this week alone and the $37,347,000,000.00 they have appropriated for next year just was not enough to satisfy their tax and spend addiction.
This past week, Congressman Kingston sent a letter to his GOP colleagues outlining eight items he believes the American people want Congress to deal with in the coming year. He is calling the agenda the American Renewal Project.
From the letter:
Dear Republican Colleague:
In December we were on offense and had a strong finish. In fact, our team came on strong in the second quarter to pass a strong border enforcement bill, pension reform, legislation to reform federal programs to save taxpayers billions of dollars, appropriations bills that made real reductions in federal spending, and a Department of Defense spending bill which included a pay raise for our soldiers and the funds necessary to win the war on terror.
But now there are those who want to put us back on defense. They would like the current transition process to weaken, not strengthen us. And they would like to keep it going until November.
But it will only happen if we let it.
Our Conference has been through tougher transitions and tackled tougher issues. The way to move forward is to do just that�move forward. We need to get back to our basic priorities, to the issues that our constituents want us to address. We need priority-based leadership.
Enclosed is a list of issues with which we are all familiar. These are the issues that have great support among our base and swing voters. These are the issues that matter outside of the beltway, regardless of what the New York Times or Washington Post opine.
Over the past months I have spoken to many Members�from our Freshman class to our Senior Committee Chairmen�about these issues and how they would play out in their district. I have also talked to consultants and wordsmiths. While not everyone agrees with everything on the list, I hope it can help us focus on our priorities and serve as a point of discussion. I hope you will consider these or other priorities you feel are key to the debate.
At the upcoming retreat, we should work together to agree on a list of issues that we will dedicate all our efforts to passing this year. It will be our commitment to America that we are focused on their concerns and worthy of retaining the majority.
You can download the American Renewal Project HERE.
