The 9/11 Commission strongly recommends that the National Intelligence Director be fully in control of the budget from developing it to implementing it to ensuring that the National Intelligence Director has the clout to make decisions.

Since September 11th Congress has created the Department of Homeland Security more than doubled the homeland security budget and implemented a bipartisan overhaul of our intelligence systems.

Increased revenues meaning higher taxes will be a central element of any successful long-term budget plan and President Obama is right to insist that the wealthy - the slice of America that has come through the recession in by far the best financial health - should provide those funds.

Domestic discretionary spending on education and health care and the environment has been growing at 2 to 3 percent a year. He says we have to rein it in but he ignores the spending category that is the big spike in the budget.

As the GAO report recognizes the long-term health of our forests relies on additional fuel reduction options and funding to reduce the risks that catastrophic fire poses to our nation's ecosystems communities and federal budgetary resources.

To do what we are doing in this budget to our children cutting their health care funds decreasing opportunity simply so we can pay for tax cuts and a war in Iraq is beyond belief and we need to reverse it.

It is hard to miss the irony in the fact that the very same week that Republicans were publicly heralding Congressman Paul Ryan's plan to inject market forces into the American health care system they were crafting a budget deal to strip them from the health reform law.

It's time to look beyond the budget ax to assure access to health care for all. It's time to look for bipartisan solutions to the problems we can tackle today and to work together for tomorrow - building a health care system that works for all Americans.

We need more transparency and accountability in government so that people know how their money is being spent. That means putting budgets online putting legislation online.

It is time we passed a balanced budget amendment and return this government to limited spending.