I want to work with President Bush and the Republicans in Congress to bring real results back home to the Fourth Congressional District.  In fact, I supported two of the President three tax cuts—repealing the estate tax and eliminating the marriage tax penalty.

However, I am concerned that the Administration has not done enough to address other important issues that really matter to the people of south Arkansas in their everyday lives—things like truly modernizing Medicare to include a voluntary but guaranteed prescription drug benefit for our seniors, investing in our children and our schools, strengthening our national defense, providing much needed assistance to our farm families, and paying down our $5.7 trillion dollar national debt, which costs us as taxpayers nearly $1 billion a day in interest alone.

The first bill I filed as a member of Congress was one that would tell the politicians in Washington to keep their hands off of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.  I am particularly troubled that the Administration’s budget uses the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to pay for its tax cut proposals.  This is especially bad given the fact that some 77 million baby boomers will begin drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits in nine short years.  Medicare and Social Security at that time will no longer be a pay as you go system.  We’ve got to protect those surpluses.

I think it’s time for the partisan bickering in Washington to stop.  I call on President Bush and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to work together to truly address these priorities that affect the every day lives of the people of south Arkansas and all Americans.