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.

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.

Regrettably, it has become clear that torture of detainees in United States custody is not limited to Abu Ghraib or even Iraq. Since Abu Ghraib, there have been increasing reports of torture.

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

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.

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.

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.