I did work well with Hillary Clinton when she was my colleague in the Senate, and I certainly don't bear her any ill will. But when I listened carefully to her commencement speech, what I heard was a laundry list of very expensive new programs that our country simply cannot afford, and that would add to our already overwhelming $17 trillion debt. I'm also disturbed by the mismatch in her answers to the questions about her e-mail server and what the FBI Director Comey says that the FBI's investigation found.

Soaring prescription drug costs have placed a tremendous strain on family budgets. They have also imposed a heavy burden on employers - both public and private - who are struggling to provide affordable health insurance coverage to their workers.

If you don't know what you want, you'll probably get what somebody else wants.

Jobs is the one area where I think Donald Trump is striking a chord that really resonates and should resonate. Both parties need to do a better job of rejecting poorly negotiated trade agreements. And I would put the president's TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, in that category. We have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs just in the state of Maine alone, and that resonates with people, and understandably so.

What we've been hearing over and over again is that the reason Republicans are opposed to the surtax is because of the concern of its impact on job creation. Well, if you carve out employers, you take away that argument.

Leaders are like gardeners ... As leaders we are not only responsible for harvesting our own success but for cultivating the success of the next generation.

The most precious contribution we can make here on Earth is to create the lives we want to be living, communicating in all ways, to everyone around us, that success is really possible.