Job growth has big impact

Federal Jobs and Growth Act:

May 28 marked the one-year anniversary of the Jobs and Growth Act of 2003.

One year ago President Bush signed into law the tax-cut bill which substantially reduced taxes for workers, families and small business people and created an environment for continued job creation and economic growth long term.

"Enacting the jobs and growth bill has helped turn the economy around," said U.S. Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri, a strong supporter of the president's tax-cut bill.

"In just one month Missouri created 20,000 jobs. Nationwide, 288,000 jobs were created in April, and more than 1.1 million jobs have been added since August. These gains are due to the hard work an productivity of the American workforce and the pro-jobs, pro-growth agenda we are passing in the Congress."

On May 21, the U.S.. Department of Labor announced that 20,000 jobs were created in Missouri between March and April, the third largest increase in the country.

This year, as a result of the Jobs and Growth Act, 111 million individuals and families will receive an average tax cut of $1,586, 49 million married couples will have an average tax cut of $2,602, 43 million families with children will receive an average tax cut of $2,090, 14 million elderly individuals will see their taxes fall on average by $1,883 and 25 million small business owners will receive an average tax cut of $3,001.

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Remarks by Bill Cosby, who headed up one of the most successful television family programs with a message, have started a necessary dialogue within the black community about the family's responsibilities in raising children.

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In England, gasoline is $5.79 a gallon. Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand. -- Anonymous

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Ungodly case:

If the Supreme Court strikes out "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, then by logic it could also decree unconstitutional the Declaration of Independence, which famously declares "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

The Founders understood that if there is no higher authority than man, that if there is no God, then basic rights are whatever the powers that be say they are. That was the road to the terror of the French Revolution and the totalitarian horrors of the last century. -- Steve Forbes

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The architect Frank Lloyd Wright warned of the floo-floo bird, "the peculiar and especial bird who always flew backward ... because it didn't give a darn where it was going but just had to see where it had been."

That's us. With our eyes fixed on our rearview mirror, we obsessively review catastrophes past when we should be looking through our windshield at dangers ahead.

The brouhaha about whether the new Bush administration treated the threat of al-Qaida as "important" versus "urgent" is history almost as ancient as whether Franklin Roosevelt did enough to avert Pearl Harbor. -- William Safire

Gary Rust is chairman of Rust Communications.