All across Virginia's 10th District--all across this country--Americans are struggling with gas prices. We pay a huge price for our dependence on oil--and it's not just the $3 dollars a gallon we pay at the pump. We pay for it when we send our young men and women to fight in Iraq or other unstable oil states from whom we import most of our oil. And we pay for it when we keep our children or elderly parents indoors when air pollution from gasoline-burning cars reaches levels that health authorities declare dangerously high.
When our leaders should have been investing in alternative energy and improved efficiency, they were giving billions of our tax dollars to oil companies already reaping enormous profits. Energy policy is just one of the many instances when Congress and the President were paying off the industries that contributed to their campaigns instead of investing in our future. Our leaders made the same bad choices when they squandered our resources and ran up an $8 trillion debt, when they favored HMOs and pharmaceutical companies over our families in enacting a Medicare drug program, and when they siphoned federal education dollars into bank profits while making historic cuts to student loans.
Voters in my district--Virginia's 10th--know can no longer afford a go-along-to-get-along congressman who never stands up to President Bush, the oil industry, or the other special interests that are running our country into the ground.
Post questions in the comments and we will get started tonight at 8:00 PM.