First of all, I'm in favor of making price gouging a crime, and in fact, one the reasons I didn't vote for the Republican House version was because there were too many breaks for the oil companies.

The reality is that we have missed a lot of opportunities in Iraq because of a failed policy.

For three years now, our brave men and women in uniform have done everything their country has asked of them, yet President Bush still does not have a plan to win the peace in Iraq and bring our troops home.

It is never too late to regain our credibility around the world.

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.

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.

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