Let me say at the outset that I do not reflexively oppose international trade.

Let me announce this to the American people tonight one of the best things about this debate, as a Democrat from Massachusetts, I have proposed eliminating, getting rid of the alternative minimum tax.

It is day after day in this institution, borrow money, run up the debt, run up the deficits and then with a straight face say, we are going to repeal a tax that affects 1 percent of the American people, just 1 percent of the American people.

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.

The number of electrical injuries cared for in hospitals in the US is estimated at as many as 50,000; the cost of these injuries on the US economy is estimated at over one billion dollars per year.

We could quite easily, Republicans and Democrats working together, do something that everybody in America desires, and that is a simplification of our Tax Code.

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.