Jack Kingston

We just wanted to draw your attention to a Wall Street Journal story about a lawsuit filed against the Salvation Army by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What has the Salvation Army done? Giving employees a year’s notice that they should speak English on the job (they would be fired if not).

You can read the article HERE. But we wanted to highlight the following:

A new Rasmussen poll finds that 87% of voters think it “very important” that people speak English in the U.S., with four out of five Hispanics agreeing. And 77% support the right of employers to have English-only policies, while only 14% are opposed.

Last week the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported on Jack’s new earmark reform bill. You can check out the article HERE.

OPEC is meeting is Saudi Arabia and here’s the latest headline:

Chavez Tells OPEC to Use Politics, Curb `Imperialism’

As you know, Jack (along with Cong. Eliot Engel from NY) have introduced the DRIVE Act which aims to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Last night, the House passed by voice vote a bill that would honor Liberty County’s own Sid Flowers.  The bill, H.R. 3470, would rename the post office at 744 West Oglethorpe Highway in Hinesville as the “John Sidney ‘Sid’ Flowers Post Office Building” and was introduced by  Jack on September 4th.  Mr. Flowers was a long-time public official and friend of the First District and the State of Georgia.

To watch Jack’s remarks on the bill, click below.

The bill must now be approved in the Senate and signed by President Bush in order to become law.

The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was originally designed in the 1960s and aimed at preventing 155 wealthy taxpayers from exploiting loopholes in the tax code. But because it was never indexed for inflation, without AMT reform, it will ensnare 25 million taxpayers in 2007; a full 21 million more than in 2006.

Well, the Democrats came up with their solution ironically called the Temporary Tax Relief Act. The bill imposes $82.5 billion in permanent tax increases on businesses and individuals over 10 years in order to offset temporary tax relief and to prevent a tax increase by a one year patch on the exemption level for the AMT.

So the Democrats have apparently taken the position that tax increases are necessary to prevent other tax increases. Not only that, but the AMT exemption is temporary while the tax increases are mostly permanent.

It’s mind-boggling and can only happen in Washington. Jack, of course, voted NO. Plus, he’s a cosponsor of the Taxpayer Choice Act which eliminates the AMT without tax increases.

It’s been roughly 145 days since the House passed a critical spending measure -the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill (H.R. 2642)- and 62 days since the Senate passed the bill.

President Bush has indicated he will sign the bill when it comes to his desk, but the Democrats apparently can’t have that. Instead this week they attempted to attach the VA bill to the Labor-HHS bill which President Bush has stated he will veto because of excessive spending. Yesterday Senate Republicans split it back into two separate bills. The Senate then sent back the Labor-HHS bill back to the House but not the VA bill. What about the VA bill? We don’t know.

So now we are coming up on Veterans Day and we still have no funding bill because Democrats prefer to play games. Our veterans deserve better.