King: H.R. 997 Brings us Together as One People
Washington, DC- Congressman Steve King released the following video statement after the House Judiciary Committee Hearing and press conference today on his bill, H.R. 997, the English Language Unity Act:
To watch Congressman King's full statement, click here.
"Today we had the hearing over the English Language Unity Act, H.R. 997, which is the bill that I've introduced in Congress which establishes English as the official language of the United States. It is necessary that we do this. Every other country that I can think of has at least one official language. Almost all the population has an official language. Immigrants that come here into America expect that English is the official language of the United States and are often surprised that it's not.
The circumstances are this. President Clinton issued an executive order, 13166, back in the 90's that compels the government agencies to essentially promote multilingualism by providing interpreters and services - in whatever language might be requested, by whoever shows up, at whatever government office. We are spending billions on interpreters and on multiple printings. We need to have one common form of communications currency, and that is English in this country. And we are very fortunate that it is English.
So there is something that seems to be wrong with this. We are borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar that we are spending, and a lot of that's coming from foreign countries. And you will hear in the streets of Iowa and across America that we are borrowing money from the Saudis, and we are borrowing money from the Chinese - and we are using that borrowed money to hire interpreters in languages that come from all places in the world. And as those interpretations are taking place, we are spending unnecessary money - borrowed money - to help people access government services in their language, so we can understand how to go further into debt. It's wrong to do that. H.R. 997 fixes that and a lot of other things and brings us together as one people."
