If a budget is designed to show our values, it's clear where the majority stands: against opportunity, against education, and against America's hard-working, tax-paying middle class.

Hurricane Katrina, coupled with Hurricane Rita, which came promptly on Katrina's heels, claimed more than 1,200 American lives. Together, they caused more than $200 billion in damage.

Today's tax cuts provide yet another illustration of the Republicans' fiscally irresponsible economic policies that ignore the needs of America's middle class, students, and working families.

The government's Small Business Administration reports that small businesses represent 99% of all employers in the U.S. and are responsible for generating well over half of new jobs created.

Rather than showing themselves to be an ally to the middle class by ending the AMT or repealing it for years to come, my Republican colleagues refused to include it in today's legislation and America's middle class will surely suffer that choice greatly.

After working for 14 years on Wall Street and growing up in a family with strong roots in small business, I know how important the entrepreneurial spirit is to attaining the American dream.

President Bush and his administration have tried to pull the wool over our eyes and distract the public from this possibly illegal domestic spying scandal.