At the same time, Republicans are pushing a $70 billion tax package that will overwhelmingly benefit the most wealthy Americans and actually increases the deficit by $16 billion.

I don't want to remember 2005 as a year that the government heaped unnecessary burdens upon American families. Stealing from the poor and middle class and giving to the rich, while increasing the deficit, is hardly responsible.

What's interesting is there are $12 billion of breaks in the energy bill that passed, yet we see that the sixth major oil companies in America last year made $1.1 trillion.

Recently, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry wrote a prescription drug bill that increased their profits and did nothing to help seniors. The result: seniors are stuck with a confusing prescription drug plan that does little to help them with their costs.

The 55% of American households that make less than $40,000 will get a tax break of only $7 while the households that make more than $1 million will receive an average tax break of $32,000.

We need a tougher enforcement program and, most importantly, we need to fix the badly broken ethics system.

Forty-five percent of Iraqi citizens think it is morally okay to attack American troops.