I think the Tea Party has brought important issues to the table.

I was the first Blunt ever elected to anything.

Remember, there are no cuts to Medicaid. Every year in Medicaid, you spend more money than you spent the year before under this plan, but the growth is not as great as it would be if you continued to pay, for instance, 100 percent for single able-bodied adults. Now, there is something wrong with the way that system is put together.

Hey, well, I've been a pretty conservative member of congress.

Electric service providers in Missouri have warned that the EPA's so-called Clean Power Plan will raise energy costs for Missourians, reduce jobs, and hurt our state's economic competitiveness. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I've fought hard to ensure provisions that would defund this harmful power grab were included in the final appropriations bill. I also support legislation to block this harmful rule and protect workers and families from the damaging effects of the Obama Administration's executive overreach and costly energy regulations.

There's no doubt that cable news hosts can say things that the president of the United States shouldn't say, and people can be harsh at you. That doesn't mean you benefit by being harsh back.

If you're a first-responder in Missouri as part of a fire department, you're three times more likely to respond to a drug overdose than you are a fire. So it's a problem. I don't know exactly what the right number is, but certainly I think members of the Senate and House are rightly concerned about it.