To date, nearly 100,000 Hispanics have died with AIDS. Since Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group in the United States, our challenge is even greater.

Education should be one of our top funding priorities; talking about it does not help the teachers and students who desperately need promises fulfilled.

This Congress has promised all manner of border security and port security to the tune of billions of dollars... yet we have - to date - funded our promises for port security at only $900 million. That's quite a distance between what we say and what we actually do.

In fact, in 2002, the Secretary of Defense authorized such support on a reimbursable basis to organizations formerly components of the Department of Justice and Department of the Treasury and currently components of the Department of Homeland Security.

Supporting the troops has got to mean more than bumper stickers on pickup trucks, my friends. We need to give them what they need.

Teachers are our greatest public servants; they spend their lives educating our young people and shaping our Nation for tomorrow.

As a father and grandfather, I have witnessed firsthand the joy of new life entering the world. I know the pain and apprehension that goes along with premature births and birth defects.