Congressman Jack Kingston - First District of Georgia

The unemployment rate, as calculated by the Department of Labor, remained unchanged at 8.2 percent.  The real unemployment rate, which includes those who have given up looking for work as well as those forced to take part time work because full time employment is not available (the underemployed), ticked was up to 14.9 percent.  That means 23.4 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed or are so discouraged by this economy they have given up looking for work.

At either rate, it makes June the 41st consecutive month in which unemployment has remained above 8 percent, the high water mark President Obama promised we would never reach with enactment of his stimulus plan.

In case you were wondering, the private sector is not doing fine but we didn’t need another jobs report to tell us that. 

Business cannot create the kind of jobs we need right now unless we tackle the uncertainty plaguing our economy.  Unfortunately, Washington is doing just the opposite by failing to provide the leadership our country needs right now and allowing a fiscal cliff to loom in the distance.

That cliff, the combined impact of the largest tax increase in American history and indiscriminate cuts both set to take effect in January, would take more than $500 billion out of the economy in 2013 alone and could send the country back into a recession according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

The House has already acted to prevent the indiscriminate cuts, replacing them with targeted reductions and savings.  While there is bipartisan agreement that the cuts should be prevented – and the President’s own Secretary of Defense has said they would “hollow out” our national defense – only the House has acted.

Later this month, the House will vote to prevent the tax increase and provide for tax simplification that lowers rates and closes special interest loopholes.  We will also vote on legislation to curtail excessive government regulations as well as for the full repeal of Obamacare which many businesses cite as one of the largest contributors to uncertainty.

The fastest route to job creation and economic growth is through a three-pronged strategy of halting overly-burdensome government regulations, simplifying the tax code, and increasing American energy production to bring down costs and create jobs.

While government cannot create jobs, it can foster an environment that empowers job creators to expand their enterprises. 

If you need evidence this Administration is doing the opposite, just look to the Keystone Pipeline.  That is a $7 billion private investment that would create 20,000 jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  It should be a no brainer but President Obama continues to stand in its way.

In addition to the votes we will take this month, the House has advanced more than 30 bipartisan jobs bills which have not even been brought to a vote in the Senate.  We have acted and provided a bipartisan basis to come together an reignite the American economy.  Now we need honest partners in the Senate and in President Obama.

What do you think about the jobs report?  What do you think would be the best means to get our economy back on track?  Weigh in by commenting on my blog.

While President Obama said that "you don't raise taxes in a recession," his signature health care legisaltion does just that.  Here are a list of new taxes and tax increases contained in the law:

Do you remember the last time the Washington Redskins won the super bowl? If you’re mature enough to recall Joe Gibbs hoisting the Lombardi trophy in 1992, then you will also call to mind the unhealthy unemployment rates, struggling economic growth, and inflationary measures continually on the rise. It would be another 20 years until this great country of ours would endure a national net income as tragically low as when I was two years old.
 
In the most recent Survey of Consumer Finances, the Federal Reserve found that the average family’s net worth plummeted 40% between 2007 and 2010.

 It’s an unfortunate time for everyone: college graduates, tax-paying Americans, and Redskins fans alike.  Maybe it’s time for President Obama and Senate Democrats to start looking at the more than thirty jobs bills passed by the House.

The Redskins, though, are on their own.

Nicholas is a recent graduate of Miami University who is interning in Jack's Washington, D.C. office.

As Europe’s debt crisis deepens and President Obama blames our economic woes on it, Daniel Henninger argues in today’s Wall Street Journal that the debt itself is not the biggest story here:

It’s an interesting argument and one that bears thought in on this side of the pond as well.

In his press conference last week in which he argued that “the private sector is doing fine,” President Obama actually argued just the opposite.  He pointed to spending restraints at the state and local government as the cause of our economic woes instead of a symptom of them, saying:

That’s a future we cannot afford and Europe is the proof: failure to address the crisis even with all the warning signs is a sure road to economic disaster.

Jack has called for an honest discussion with the American people about where we are fiscally and what we need to do to reignite our economy and restore the American dream.  He has argued that we should 'go big' in addressing our debt crisis and introduced a plan that would balance the budget in as few as five years.

As Governor Mitch Daniels said:

 Border patrol agents discovered a white SUV suspected of trafficking drugs and people into the United States during the early morning hours in the Vekol Valley area of Arizona. The car, which was suspected of trafficking drugs and people, was discovered smoldering with numerous bodies and no signs of the driver and front passenger, according to a report by ABC News. This is just another example of the incessant violence that has plagued our borders since the fighting between cartels began. These violent incidents between the cartels and civilians are fueled over the battle for power, money and the flow of drugs.

 Due to the restrictions on gun ownership in Mexico, many of those cartels look north to the Untied States as a way to procure new gun shipments to continue their drug wars. The ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious was an operation to investigate and shut down gun trafficking operations between the United States and Mexico. Further investigations concluded that this operation was grossly mishandled with thousands up guns ending up, untraced, in the hands of Mexican cartels. Since the inception of the operation, these guns have been implicated in the murders of American citizens, such as Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry.

 This reckless handling of the Fast and Furious operation is due in large part to the oversight provided by Attorney Eric Holder. An Obama administration appointee, Attorney General Holder is under investigation because of his involvement in the Fast and Furious operation and limited cooperation he has put forth in the ensuing investigation. According to a June 5th article by Fox News, Representative Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has subpoenaed information regarding agents’ activities and knowledge of those overseeing the operation. Chairman Issa’s decision to push forth with the subpoenas, despite some objections, has shown the House’s commitment to discovering the truth and bringing those responsible to justice for this catastrophic blunder.

 For too long, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department have withheld information regarding the details of the Fast and Furious operation. Chairman Issa’s attempts to have the records available to review have been denied at every turn. Speaker of the House John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and Chairman Issa wrote a letter to Holder in which they “want to know why Justice Department officials misled Congress at the outset of the congressional investigation”, according to an article in Politico. A blatant disregard for congressional oversight and a lack of responsibility among operations has raised numerous red flags for Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department.

 The Fast and Furious operation has directly resulted in the deaths of American citizens without any visible accountability by those responsible. Attorney General Holder has attempted to bypass the jurisdiction and oversight of Congress in order to hide his misgivings and egregious mistakes from the eyes of Congress and the American people. President Obama’s refusal to ask for his resignation or push for increased cooperation is a clear sign of the unwillingness of the Administration to cooperate with the legislative branch. Those responsible, including Eric Holder and members of the Justice Department, need to be held liable for their actions and must cooperate with the authorities on the investigation. Anything less than full cooperation is reprehensible and the American people demand it.

Nick is a recent graduate of the University of Georgia who is interning in Jack's Washington, D.C. office.

While gas prices are down slightly, we shouldn’t let this brief respite distract us from the need for a long-term energy policy that focuses on harnessing America's energy resources.  Increasing domestic energy production will help create jobs, revive our stumbling economy, raise government revenue, and lower gas prices.  Lower gas prices, in turn, will increase disposable income which will help create even more jobs.

The Heritage Foundation proposed these 10 ways Congress can help lower gas prices:

1. Lift Offshore and Onshore Exploration and Drilling Bans
The United States is the only country that limits the oil exploration on a majority of its waters.

2. Approve Keystone XL 
If President Obama had approved the permit for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day would have come from Canada to the Gulf Coast refineries as early as 2013.  It would also represent a $7 billion investment in American infrastructure without a dime of taxpayer funds!

3. Require Timely Environmental Review
The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) estimates that an environmental impact statement (EIS) to approve a larger drilling project should take one year to complete, while smaller environmental assessments (EAs) should take no more than three months.  Since 2005, it has taken the government an average of five years to complete an EIS, and EAs regularly take over four years.

4. Reform the Permitting Process 
While the Energy Policy Act of 2005 stipulates a 30-day time limit for processing Applications for Permit to Drill (APDs), bureaucrats at the Department of the Interior are ignoring the law.  Congress should require the Department to honor the law's deadline for any complete application.

5. Issue Leases on Time
Congress should remove these additional levels of red tape and stipulate that if Interior fails to issue the lease to the winning bidder within 60 days, the lease should be considered issued by default.

6. Allow Development of Oil Shale
According to the Bureau of Land Management, the United States has five times the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia yet we continue to import oil from this and other nations hostile to our national interests.  We can safely and efficiently develop these reserves and should start doing so today. 

7. Stop the Land Grab
Classifying federal land areas as “wilderness” or “wild lands” takes away from possible energy production sites by fiat.  Congress should block Secretarial Order 3310 today.

8. Implement 50/50 Revenue Sharing
States where energy production takes place should receive 50 percent of the revenues generated by onshore and offshore oil and natural gas production on federal lands.  Doing so would involve state and localities in drilling decisions.

9. Prohibit Greenhouse Gas and Tier 3 Gas Regulations
The most effective approach to stopping the federal government’s power grab would be to permanently prohibit any federal agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

10. Repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard
The Renewable Fuel Standard, also known as the ethanol mandate, was short-sited and fines businesses for being unable to meet an unrealistic standard.  Consumers ultimately pay the price and its time for the standard to be repealed.

To read more on this topic and view the set of ten actions Congress can take towards lowering gas prices, click here.

George is an intern in Jack's Washington, D.C. Office this summer.  He is a rising junior at Penn State.

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 115,000 jobs were added in the month of April. While the announcement of these new jobs is welcomed, many aspects of today’s report demonstrate that Americans continue to suffer through a painfully tepid recovery made even slower by the president’s policies. For instance, unemployment remains above 8 percent, now for the 39^th month in a row, further extending the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression. The labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of able Americans working or looking for work, was at a 30-year low in April. If the percentage of Americans in the work force were as high today as at the beginning of this recession, unemployment would actually be 11.5 percent.

·         39: The unemployment rate has been at or above 8 percent for 39 consecutive months. Before President Obama took office, unemployment had not been above 8 percent for this long since the Great Depression. Over three years ago, the Obama Administration said that unemployment would never reach 8 percent if the “stimulus” was approved.

·         8.1%: The unemployment rate for the month of April was 8.1 percent. Since the president’s failed $1.2 trillion “stimulus” was enacted in February 2009 unemployment has averaged 9.1 percent.

·         169,000: The total number of employed Americans actually fell by 169,000 in the month of April. The reason the unemployment rate still went down and new jobs were technically added is because the total number of Americans searching for a job fell by 342,000. 

·         Less than 6%: The level at which the Obama Administration claimed unemployment would be today if the “stimulus” was signed into law was below 6 percent.

·         63.6%: The labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of able Americans working or looking for work, was at a 30-year low of 63.6 percent in April. Much of the recent decline in the unemployment rate can be attributed to the historic drop in labor force participation as more and more American give up on finding a job. That means that 36.4 percent of able-bodied, non-elderly Americans are not even looking for a job in the Obama economy.

·         11.5%: If the labor force participation rate were at the same level it was before the recession started the unemployment rate would be 11.5 percent today. 

·         14.5%: The rate of “underemployment” or “real unemployment,” including the unemployed, those who want work but have stopped searching in this economy, and those who are forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment is 14.5 percent.

·         12,500,000: There were 12.5 million unemployed Americans looking for work in the month of April.  There have been more than 12 million unemployed Americans every month that President Obama has been in office.

·         7,853,000: The number of Americans forced to work only part-time in April because they could not find full-time employment was 7.9 million.

·         2,363,000: The number of people who are available to work and have looked for a job at some point in the last year but are not counted as unemployed because they gave up their search is now 2.3 million. 

·         968,000: The number of discouraged people who stopped looking for work because they believed there were no jobs available is now 865,000.

·         22,716,000: The total number of “underemployed” Americans is 22.7 million, including those unemployed (12.5 million), those who are no longer looking for work (2.3 million), and those who are working part-time because no other work is available (7.9 million).

·         39.1: The average number of weeks it takes for job seekers to find a job. The average time it takes for people to find a job is up from 19.8 weeks in January 2009 when President Obama took office.

·         5,101,000: The number of Americans unemployed and searching for work for more than 27 weeks in the month of April. Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the number of people unemployed for more than 27 weeks has increased almost 90 percent.

·         572,000: The economy has shed 572,000 net jobs from February 2009—when the Democrats’ “stimulus” was signed into law—through April 2012.

·         15.1%: The official poverty rate in 2010 according to the Census Bureau—up from 14.3 percent in 2009. This was the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate and the highest poverty rate since 1993.

·         46,200,000: The number of Americans who were in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009—the fourth consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty.  The number of Americans in poverty in 2010 is the largest number in the 52 years in which poverty estimates have been published by the Census Bureau.

·         $3,378: Since President Obama took office, median household incomes have dropped by $3,378, falling to its lowest level since 1996. Household income has fallen by 6.4 percent since 2007.

·         46,326,352: The number of Americans receiving food stamps as of February 2012 was 46.3 million, the third most in any month in history. Today, 15 percent of Americans receive food stamps, an increase of 40 percent since President Obama took office.

·         13^th: Where the U.S. ranks in ease of starting a business in the world according to a World Bank report.  In 2007, the U.S. ranked 3^rd.

·         1,384,000: The number of first time job seekers that are unemployed is now 1.4 million, up 131,000 from January. The number of new workers who cannot find a job has been above 1 million for 35 months.

·         24.9%: The unemployment rate among job seekers between the ages of 16 and 19 was 25 percent in April, up from 23.8 percent in February. Youth unemployment has been above 23 percent for 34 months, the longest streak since the Great Depression.

·         13%: The unemployment rate among African Americans in April was 13 percent.

·         10.3%: The unemployment rate among Hispanics and Latinos was 10.3 percent.

·         12.5%:  The unemployment rate among Americans without high school diplomas.

·         $1,178,000,000,000:  The total cost of the Democrats’ “stimulus.” CBO estimates the cost of the bill will reach $831 billion and interest on the debt for the bill will be at least $347 billion.