As founder and co-chair of the upper Mississippi River Congressional task force I have long sought to preserve the river's health and historical multiple uses including as a natural waterway and a home to wildlife for the benefit of future generations of Americans.

We've had Town Hall meetings we've witnessed election after election in which the American people have taken a position on the President's health care bill. And the bottom line is the people don't like this bill. They don't want it.

I am hopeful for the American people that we can actually improve the outlook for bringing down costs in health care.

Challenges of historic import threaten America's future. Action on the deficit economy energy health care and much more is imperative yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.

Third issue and again I think it is important to note anyone can make a mistake and any administration can make a mistake once in a while but this is just a long train of abuses an unbroken chain of following special interests rather than the health of the American people.

There should not be one new dime in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires as long as millions of children in America are poor hungry uneducated and without health coverage.

There's definitely evidence that capitalism at its most ruthless rewards psychopathic behavior. When you look at the worst corners of the American health insurance industry or the sub-prime banking market it really feels like the more psychopathically someone behaves the more it's rewarded.

I think that the millions and millions of young Americans young Americans who have health care today who wouldn't have had it if the president hadn't acted are better off.

The fact is if we do our job right if we keep worrying not about polls but about the jobs of the American people about their health care about their ability to educate their kids stay in their homes and own their homes send their kids to college the basic pillars of a middle-class life if we keep worrying about the future and building a stronger future for this country these things will take care of themselves.

In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final healthcare bill will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer health care.