If jazz education in our colleges were free to all it would provide thousands of good jobs in the music industry which has been taken over by corrupt millionaires and billionaires.

The only way change happens is when people become more significantly involved in the political process. We have to increase voter turnout and citizen participation so that people know what's going on and demand a government that works for everybody and not just the one percent.

At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.

I think what the secretary Hillary Clinton has recognized is the American people are extremely angry about the power of Wall Street, the greed, the illegal behavior of Wall Street.

You have a right to protest. But I don't quite understand why anybody thinks it's a good idea to deny somebody else the right to express his or her point of view.

The TPP is another corporate-backed agreement that is the latest in a series of trade policies which have cost us millions of decent-paying jobs, pushed down wages for American workers and led to the decline of our middle class. We want American companies to create decent-paying jobs in America, not just low-wage countries like Vietnam, Malaysia or China. The TPP must be defeated.

Our ideas need to become part of everyday discussion.