Democrats are going to proudly run on the fact that we turned the economy around. It was our policies under President Obama's leadership through the Recovery Act through investing in the automobile industry.

These past years as we have been recovering and given our city a rebirth we have been encouraged by our faith knowledge and steadfast belief that we will pull through. There will be challenges and setbacks as there have already been but we will continue and we the citizens of New Orleans will prevail in bringing our city back.

I think I have a duty as a recovering guy to help to make my knowledge of what I went through accessible.

In our recovery package we put new standards of accountability and transparency which we hope will now apply.

I don't want to go negative on Franklin Delano Roosevelt but he didn't pass an economic deal in the first 100 days. We have passed the largest Recovery Act in the history of the country.

In history as in human life regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.

More than five million seniors have already saved money on their prescription drugs and almost 33 million have benefited from free preventive services. The president cracked down hard on Medicare and health care fraud recovering a record-breaking $10.7 billion over the last three years protecting our seniors. That's what change looks like.

Raising taxes is the last thing we should do amid the weakest economic recovery since World War II. Unfortunately even if we avoid the full 'Taxmageddon' scenario President Obama's health care law also contains a new surtax on investment that will take effect in 2013.

In some ways I'm still recovering from the trial. My health is not as good as it ought to be. I've gone back to practicing law and it seems to have taken a toll for whatever reason.

We see tremendous excitement from small-business people about the administration and about the attention and commitment that the president has to do things that really make a difference. I think they recognize that health care is one of those. I think they recognize that what we've been doing in the Recovery Act with our loan programs has mattered.