A budget should reflect the values and priorities of our nation and its people.

Budgets are moral documents. Federal funding should reflect the priorities and the values of the majority of the American people.

For the last 50 years, the federal government has taken out of the Gulf Coast $165 billion in taxes that came from oil and gas off of our coast that went to the federal Treasury, to rebuild all places in America except the place that it came from.

All sorts of issues of trust, values and priorities come up.

I agree that we must expand opportunities for retirement saving, but we must not undermine this worthy effort with a flawed privatization scheme that takes the 'security' out of Social Security.

While my state experiences unemployment rates not seen since the Great Depression, it is unconscionable that illegal workers would be brought into Louisiana, aggravating our employment crisis and depressing earnings for our workers.