American leadership looks to the world and just as Lincoln did sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game.

I'm also particularly pleased that there is bipartisan support to include the input of border communities. Not only will security be strengthened according to Washington, D.C., but border communities will have a say as well.

There are some Republicans who say that any time you raise new revenue, you have to have a tax cut to match it. I am not one of those Republicans.

Many of the earmark request forms are actually filled out by lobbyists and then just turned in by the member's staff to the appropriations committee.

Unfortunately there are too many examples of members of Congress and other elected officials using language, referring to your opponents in ways that you would have never done before, ascribing the worst motives to your opponents, and assuming that other Americans are the enemies. And that's just not the way it used to be. And I don't think it can be that way in the future.

I feel at some point that the farm state politics will overwhelm the Florida politics.

The country is facing a fiscal crisis, and the United States Senate is at the center of the debate about how to bring federal spending under control.