President Obama's reelection started the countdown for lawmakers to address the fiscal cliff and the statutory debt limit. Unless the President and House Republicans can agree on changes to current law, the U.S. economy will be in recession by spring.
Since 1994, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have considered it politically risky to offer a plan to fix America's broken health care system. The American public, though, has paid the price for this silence as health care costs skyrocketed, millions went uninsured, and millions more grappled with financial insecurity and hardship.
As federal lawmakers, we have a responsibility to set a precedent for energy efficient practices.
The American people are screaming out saying it's unfair that the wealthiest, the largest corporations who can afford the best attorneys, the best accountants, take advantage of these special tax treatments that the lobbyists have, along with lawmakers, have cooked in the books here.
Money often determines not only who gets elected, but what gets done. Which voices do lawmakers listen to, the banks or home owners, coal companies, or asthma sufferers, the CEOs or the unemployed?
There are online forms you can fill out to send to your lawmakers, demanding that nothing - nothing at all or in any way - be done about any guns whatever, anywhere.
I guess what bothers me so much about what I now see going on in both Washington and in Texas is an effort to keep people from finding out about the mistakes of lawmakers and then when they're uncovered, an effort to fool people and pretend there was nothing wrong.
Lawmakers need to be held accountable and should feel the impact of a government shutdown just like many other Americans will.
We have all read tragic stories in our local papers about gun accidents as a result of misuse. As lawmakers we can better promote safety and responsibility by encouraging gun owners to purchase gun safes to store firearms and keep them from falling into the wrong hands.
We love the ability of the people to influence the actions of decision-makers, of lawmakers and presidents to be removed from or elevated to office by the will of voters, and of the community to connect amongst diverse populations through the ballot box.