U.S. Rep.

Phil English, R-3rd, on Tuesday joined members of the board of United Way in the U.S. Capitol to discuss the legislative initiatives of the Congressional Savings and Ownership Caucus.The United Way recently launched the United Way Financial Stability Partnership, a new national initiative to boost Americans' savings rate.The organization tapped English, a co-chairman of the caucus, to brief its board members on the caucus's agenda."The Savings and Ownership Caucus has served as a useful forum for sharing ideas and putting the issue of increased personal savings and ownership on the national agenda. In my view, Congress needs to pursue an aggressive agenda to empower families with limited means through ownership and economic opportunity."In 2005, English helped launch the Congressional Savings and Ownership Caucus to promote savings and investment across the country. He said the bipartisan caucus has developed a variety of legislative initiatives that will encourage Americans to save and build assets.Earlier this year, English joined U.S. Rep.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, in introducing the Savings for Workings Families Act, bipartisan legislation to expand Individual Development Accounts, which seek to enable low-income families to save, achieve home ownership, education or establish a business.———State Rep.

Jaret Gibbons, D-10th, this week announced his support of House Democratic plans to pass a health-care package that he said are designed to provide access to quality, affordable health care coverage for all Pennsylvanians.The package includes legislation introduced by Gibbons that would ensure that only clinical nurse specialists who are licensed and meet board standards could use the clinical nurse specialist title.Democrats in the House of Representatives, Gibbons noted, are introducing the bills to enact Gov. Ed Rendell's Prescription for Pennsylvania health-care proposal.Gibbons said components of the plan would, in part, reduce hospital infections, and encourage health care providers to offer evening and weekend hours so patients could go to a doctor's office rather than an emergency room for routine medical care.———The House Republican Policy Committee's Welfare Reform Task Force last week unveiled a legislative package that includes a bill sponsored by Rep.

Scott Hutchinson, R-64th, that seeks to curb welfare funding."The Welfare Reform Task Force is not about denying truly needy residents the financial support that they deserve," said Hutchinson. "We are about saving the welfare system from those who have abused the commonwealth's kindness for the elderly, children and those who are permanently disabled."Hutchinson said his Department of Public Welfare Accountability Act, sets forth the basic principles that the state must meet the work requirements under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and general assistance guidelines.If the rules are not met, the measure calls for a financial penalty of 10 percent in certain funding for the Department of Public Welfare. This legislation will only apply to the 2007-08 budget year.For information on the task force proposals, visit pahousegop.com and click on the welfare reform link.———State Rep.

Daryl Metcalfe, R-12th, last week announced legislation he said would rein in salary levels for members of the Pennsylvania judiciaryMetcalfe said his measure would prohibit Pennsylvania justices and judges from automatically receiving salary increases linked to salary increases for federal judges.Metcalfe maintains his assertion the Pennsylvania Supreme Court "selfishly and recklessly" ignored a specific portion of the law that mandated the judicial branch of state government, too, must forfeit its raises, when it reinstated its own portion of the state pay raise on Sept. 14, 2006.The decision also stipulated the more than 1,000 county and state judges must be reimbursed for the reduction in pay retroactive to November 2005, when the pay raise was repealed."When the state Supreme Court issued its self-serving decision — upholding our law insofar as it repealed pay raises for the legislative and executive branches and striking it down insofar as it repealed the salary hike for themselves and other judges — it ducked the constitutional status of a provision to repeal the automatic link between the future salaries of federal judges and Pennsylvania judges," Metcalfe said."However, their loyal staff in the administrative office of the Pennsylvania courts dutifully issued a creative interpretation of the ruling and the Constitution in order to keep future pay raises rolling in."The salaries for the judiciary, when factoring in the reinstated judicial raises and their January 2007 cost-of-living adjustment, are: $180,336 for the chief justice of the Supreme Court; $175,326 for associate justices; $165,342 for judges of the Superior and Commonwealth courts; and $149,132 for county judges.