Charles B. Rangel

The Affordable Care Act has been designed to provide health security by driving competition, lowering premiums, and protecting families.

As the wealthiest nation on Earth, we have made a commitment to provide health care for those over 65. In order to pay for this, each of us should contribute the same, flat percentage of our earned income.

So many deaths could be prevented if measures were implemented to expand background checks and keep individuals like John Hinckley from ever buying firearms in the first place.

We owe it to the flood victims of New Orleans to give them truthful answers as to why this event took place and to assure our citizens that tragedies like this will never happen again.

Reapportionment is not friendly to a lot of communities and it hasn't been too friendly to mine.

Full participation in government and society has been a basic right of the country symbolizing the full citizenship and equal protection of all.

I think that, as Americans, we should never forget that when we tamper with freedom of speech, it is a very sensitive issue that affects all of our constitutional rights and privileges.

I was proud to march beside some of the most notable Civil Rights activists, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., from Selma to Montgomery.

Dr. King's famous 'I Have a Dream' speech was delivered at 'The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,' a call to justice beyond the traditional civil rights movement's focus.

I, for one, would think both about how far we have come as a country and how much further we need to go to erase racism and discrimination from our society.

The Klan had used fear, intimidation and murder to brutally oppress over African-Americans who sought justice and equality and it sought to respond to the young workers of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the same way.

As a nation we should commit ourselves not only to the fight against terrorism, but to economic justice, defeat of the AIDS epidemic and vestiges of discriminatory policies of all kinds.