I have fought to protect those benefits that ensure better salaries for teachers across the Nation such as grants to pay off student loans and funding for Teach for America. Still, we must all do more to show our continued appreciation for our Nation's leading role models.

This nation's 23 million small businesses need a budget that reflects their value to the economy.

Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.

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

Small businesses drive this economy and it is unacceptable that the President's budget proposal does not give them the tools they need to be successful.

I worked with the March of Dimes to enact legislation for a national birth defects prevention program to provide surveillance, research and preventive services aimed at reducing the rate of birth defects.

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.