It is of the utmost importance that our service members are adequately compensated for their duties, and that we offer them a quality of life that will enable them to continue to serve and to live comfortably.

Common sense should tell us that there is no reason for civilians to have access to easily concealable handguns with the capability to shoot through body armor.

When a decision is made to go to war based on intelligence, it is a fateful decision. It has ramifications and impacts way beyond the current months and years.

Firefighters are essential to the safety and security of our local communities. We owe it to these men and women to provide them with better training and equipment so they can do their jobs more effectively and safely.

If they understand, which I believe they really are sensing, that the alternative the Republicans have been offering is to repeal what we've done, to go back to Bush policies - and if you asked the public what would you prefer, Bush economic policies or Obama economic policies, they take and prefer Obama economic policies.

Sadly, the President's budget proposal for the upcoming year once again puts cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans over addressing our country's severe fiscal problems.

The intelligence failures with respect to Iraq were massive and have damaged our credibility around the world.

While it is clear that we need to make some adjustments to protect Social Security for the long term, it is disingenuous to say that the trust fund is facing a crisis.

Even top caliber hospitals cannot escape medical mistakes that sometimes result in irreparable damage to patients.

The American people deserve a budget that invests in the future, protects the most vulnerable among us and helps to create jobs and economic security.

Restoring responsibility and accountability is essential to the economic and fiscal health of our nation.

The terrorist attacks of September 11th and the courageous actions of our armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq remind us that friends of tyranny and enemies of freedom still exist.

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror.

If we have a chance of succeeding and bringing stability and democracy to Iraq, it will mean learning from our mistakes, not denying them and not ignoring them.

We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.

Dr. Rice's record on Iraq gives me great concern. In her public statements she clearly overstated and exaggerated the intelligence concerning Iraq before the war in order to support the President's decision to initiate military action against Iraq.

We have a hope of succeeding if we learn from our past mistakes and pull together to make the hard choices.

Safe storage and child access prevention laws are critical steps as we seek to reduce the occurrence of accidental shootings and suicides involving guns.

It is of the utmost importance that our service members are adequately compensated for their duties, and that we offer them a quality of life that will enable them to continue to serve and to live comfortably.

I am 100 percent supportive of the stand-alone bill to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell' that Sens. Lieberman and Collins have now proposed, and indeed I will co-sponsor that legislation. It is time for this discriminatory policy to end, and I am willing to pursue any effective legislative path that could lead to that result.

The Constitution is a document that should only be amended with great caution.

It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance.

The sanctity of our battlefields, monuments, and veterans institutions is of utmost importance to preserve military history and pay respect to those who fought.

Research is of considerable importance in certain fields, such as science and history.

The education of my brother and myself was of paramount importance to my parents, and in addition to their strong encouragement, they were prepared to make any sacrifice to further our intellectual development.

What I have learned from my work up to now, is to try to be open, but also protect myself by not letting the good and the evil get too much importance.

While I recognize the great value and importance of prescription drugs and strongly support a continued U.S. focus on pharmaceutical research and development, our nation's seniors cannot be asked to subsidize the drug costs of other wealthy industrialized nations any longer.

It is seldom in life that one knows that a coming event is to be of crucial importance.

Similarly, the problem of the rights of the state in the disposition of inheritances left by individuals presents social aspects of the first importance.

The best thing about lying in bed late is that you learn to distinguish between first things and trivia, for whatever presses on you has to prove its importance before it makes you move.

My object will be, first, to show by what connections the history of the fossil bones of land animals is linked to the theory of the earth and why they have a particular importance in this respect.

Absent scandal, a federal judge can serve for decades on the bench, underscoring the importance of appointing judges who have a proper understanding of their constitutional role.

With respect to the FBI, they had problems communicating in a vertical way, within the FBI itself, so that information of importance could get pushed up to those who were decision-makers.

It's hard to exaggerate the importance of preserving the financial integrity of Social Security.

The high food value of field beans and the shortage of supply due to the light yields of 1915 and 1916 render them of great importance in the regions to which they are adapted.

It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.

Malcolm was a firm believer in the value and importance of our heritage. He believed that we have valuable and distinct cultural traditions which need to be institutionalized so that they can be passed on to our heirs.

I believe 100 percent in the power and importance of music.

What does gene A do? What does gene B do? What does it do in different contexts? What's its importance? We know the answer to that for a very small number of genes, the ones that made themselves evident many years ago.

It is necessary to be concerned about the importance of educating a really beautiful human spirit.

Churchill knew the importance of peace, and he also knew the price of it. Churchill finally got his voice, of course. He stressed strategy, but it was his voice that armed England at last with the old-fashioned moral concepts of honor and duty, justice and mercy.

Character is better than ancestry, and personal conduct is of more importance than the highest.

For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights.

Amour is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and pain.

I think we Americans, of all people, understand the importance of a good, legal, constitutional framework as the basis of political life.

The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.

Of course, relative citation frequencies are no measure of relative importance. Who has not aspired to write a paper so fundamental that very soon it is known to everyone and cited by no one?

So nonetheless given the importance that was placed on sport in Australia, I wanted to be part of that scene, particularly since I had felt very strongly in my early schooling being marginalised even in the Catholic school.

The biggest lesson I've learned by living abroad for the last four years is the importance of communication.