More broadly, we are going to have to examine the safety net programs to make sure they are poised to catch the families before they fall even more, especially in the areas of unemployment benefits, child care assistance, and foster care.

President Bush is manufacturing a crisis by suggesting that Social Security is in imminent danger. It is not.

Inherited wealth, that is not what America is based upon.

It is easy to talk about tax simplification, and we all know it is very difficult to accomplish; but for the last three Congresses, I have offered a tax simplification bill that would include a paid-for repeal of alternative minimum tax.

More broadly, we are going to have to examine the safety net programs to make sure they are poised to catch the families before they fall even more, especially in the areas of unemployment benefits, child care assistance, and foster care.

The alternative minimum tax was designed to prevent the very wealthiest Americans from overusing certain tax benefits to avoid most of their tax burden.

The Tax Code today is more complicated than ever, and the very people on the Republican side who denounce the Tax Code's complexity are the ones that put together what they now call a convoluted monstrosity. They put it into effect.