I'm proud of my Native American heritage.

It is not the job of the Department of Education to maximize profits for the government at the cost of squeezing students who are struggling to get an education.

The bankers might not have said it in so many words, but gradually their strategy emerged: Target families who were already in a little trouble, lend them more money, get them entangled in high fees and astronomical interest rates, and then block the doors to the bankruptcy exit if they really got in over their heads.

President Obama believes in a country where we invest in education, in roads and bridges, in science and in the future, so we can create new opportunities so the next kid can make it big, and the kid after that, and the kid after that. That's what president Obama believes.

I do not understand how it is that financial institutions could think that they could take taxpayer money and then turn around and act like it's business as usual. I don't understand how they can't see that the world has changed in a fundamental way, that it is not business as usual when you take taxpayer dollars.

Congress must go further to protect the right to privacy, to end the NSA's dragnet surveillance of ordinary Americans, to make the intelligence community more transparent and accountable.

The total amount of money that Wall Street handed out in bonuses last year was double the total income of ALL full-time minimum wage workers. That's obscene.