First, the year 2004, the year past, the Comptroller General of the United States, David A. Walker, said that arguably it was the worst year in American fiscal history, clearly setting our Nation on an unsustainable path.

We are scheduled to meet this year fewer days than any Congress since at least 1948. And that is even before I was born. So far, we are in the 123rd day of this year, and yet we have only had 26 voting days in this body. That is a shame.

This Congress is simply not doing its job under Republican leadership.

Take the veto. Bush is the first president since James Garfield in 1881 not to veto a single bill. Garfield only had six months in office; Bush has had over four years.

Equality under the law is the slow triumph of hope over history.

It's not just that families can't buy a home or start a business without some savings tucked away.

Aging nations have arteries clogged with obsolete laws, slowing blood flow and preventing oxygen from reaching all parts of the body politic. Physicians call this arteriosclerosis; historians see decline of empire.