By Bonnie Holland

Guest Columnist 

Greetings from Republican Women of Greater Picayune.

Locally we had Hal Kittrell and Sharon Kittrell for our March meeting. Hal is the 15th Circuit Court District Attorney and Sharon assists with drug court and rehabilitation placement. The discussion addressed drug problems in South Mississippi and the treatment plans available. The program was very informative and well attended.

Also locally is the Morning Call breakfast which will be held at the Crosby Library on March 28th at 9am. This event is sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and is a networking session with local businesses. If you own a local business or are considering opening a local business this is a great opportunity to glean information and promote your business. The Republican Women’s next function will be held in April and will be announced in the Picayune Item.

State wide House of Representative Mark Formby, Majority Whip for the Republican Caucus, reports the Mississippi Legislature is half way through this session. House bills have gone to the Senate and the surviving bills are on the Senate calendar.

One of the bills that Representative Formby has put forward is DNA collection for suspects arrested for the commission of a violent crime. The DNA samples will be kept on file for future reference; the DNA sample is very simple to obtain through a mouth swab.

Several of our local representation in both the House and Senate have put forth excellent bills for consideration. In order to track a certain bill or to find out how your state representation voted the access the website Mississippivotes.org .

In the Secretary of State’s office there is a bill in process to allow tax forfeited property to be purchased by corporations form the state of MS up to a maximum of 165 acres per calendar year. The philosophy behind this bill is to encourage more industry to relocate to Mississippi and for current industry to expand.

Nationally the Obama administration 2015 FY budget has been released. As this budget has many facets many conservative Americans will find troublesome I will only address one in today’s column. Energy companies are to be burdened with a 100 BILLION dollar tax increase.

Yes, folks, you read that right…100 BILLION.

Our region will be greatly impacted by this enormous tax increase as many citizens in the southeastern region of the U.S. are employed by Oil and Natural Gas companies.

According to Forbes magazine the Obama tax increase will make it harder for the energy companies to recover their investments, which will hamper companies from redeploying their capital which will in turn stunt economic growth and kill jobs.

Natural gas and Oil companies have increased jobs by 40% since the beginning of the recession.

So, let’s just try to follow this one…We are raising taxes exponentially on a growing industry that is creating jobs and stimulating our economy. Please contact your national representation and let them know your views on this tax hike before it has a chance to become a reality.