I wanted to follow up on a few things that some of the other Senators asked.

We are trying to get here, instead of a short-term view of our economy and our business markets, we are trying to get a long-term view on trying to encourage responsible behavior.

And to do that, we have to get the best possible results for the American taxpayers at the lowest cost, and, to me, this means transparency and accountability.

American households now stand at owing 130 percent of their annual income in total debt.

We want to do it in a prudent way, and we want to do it quickly.

I have always believed that we need to restore stability in our financial markets, and you have been a leader with that.

We will have them in a week or so. We have nine states now in double digits.

Our state now went, we lag about a month, but from the 8.2 percent down to 8.1 percent unemployment.

So we are at a 9.4 percent unemployment rate.

the companies seem to be--not in every sector, but some of these companies seem to be evening out, or actually seeing some improvement.

the unemployment rate of Veterans since the Gulf War is higher than the unemployment rate for people who have not served our country.