The poor have been sent to the front lines of a federal budget deficit reduction war that few other groups were drafted to fight.

The Declaration of Independence was always our vision of who we wanted to be, our ideal of freedom and justice, how we were going to be different, and what the American experiment was going to be about.

Ordinary women of grace are, in a sense, my real role models.

To all those mothers and fathers who are struggling with teen-agers, I say, just be patient: even though it looks like you can't do anything right for a number of years, parents become popular again when kids reach 20.

Far less wealthy industrialized countries have committed to end child poverty, while the United States is sliding backwards. We can do better. We must demand that our leaders do better.

We are willing to spend the least amount of money to keep a kid at home, more to put him in a foster home and the most to institutionalize him.

It is time for every one of us to roll up our sleeves and put ourselves at the top of our commitment list.