Unemployment insurance, abolishing child labor, the 40-hour work week, collective bargaining, strong banking regulations, deposit insurance, and job programs that put millions of people to work were all described, in one way or another, as 'socialist.' Yet, these programs have become the fabric of our nation and the foundation of the middle class.

Our budget works to reduce and eliminate the risk of attacks at our ports, rails, in the skies, our food supply and roads by allowing for increases in many of the programs and agencies to help protect these important areas of commerce and travel.

I travel the world visiting global health programs as an ambassador for the global health organization, PSI, and sometimes the disconnect I see is truly striking: people can get cold Coca Cola, but far too infrequently malaria drugs; most own mobile phones, but don't have equal access to pre-natal care.

I am thankful that members of advisory councils will serve as 'boots on the ground' to provide valuable feedback and recommendations directly from the community regarding policies, programs and resources that enhance and support our district.

Christine Bass was my high school music teacher. She took a program on its last legs and within a few years turned into one of the best programs in the country. Our high school dominated national choir competitions all through her 20-plus year tenure.

There's steps that I've taken already, and each week, talking with the sports psychologist on a routine basis and working with the different programs that we're going through. This is all stuff that you can say you're going to make a difference, but I'm putting it into action.

Academics often discount the value of top-rated sports programs in helping to develop a campus life and in contributing to the overall success of a college or university. Like it or not, the sports programs a college or university has are the front page of that university.

Companies that support sports developmental programs in our communities should also be applauded.

So many schools are getting rid of music programs and it's really sad because I know that when I started singing and stuff it was something that I always wanted to do and I never believed in myself to be able to do it.

I respect the game that goes on of putting this against that, but I don't respect, nor do I enjoy, an awful lot of the actual programs that go on the air.

We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.

You prevent kids from joining gangs by offering after-school programs, sports, mentoring, and positive engagement with adults. You intervene with gang members by offering alternatives and employment to help redirect their lives. You deal with areas of high gang crime activity with real community policing. We know what works.

Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.

A group of us started a community center in Santa Monica. We've tried different programs, and three have worked really well. A poetry group. Once a week we visit Venice High and talk to girls at risk.

I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that.

In a world where people are hungry for quick fixes and sound bites, for instant gratification, there's no patience for the long, slow rebuilding process: implementing after-school programs, hiring more community workers to act as mentors, adding more job training programs in marginalized areas.

Parenting is one of the best management training programs there is.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

The world is not kind to whistleblowers - a term of art with particular resonance in football, the most hierarchical and repressive of organized sports, a world of 'systems' and 'programs' and scripted plays, where reading a medical report requires a security clearance, and practice fields are patrolled like Guantanamo Bay.

Haiti is always talking about decentralization and nothing has been so obvious, perhaps a weakness, as the centralized nature of Haitian society as being revealed by the earthquake. I mean, they lost all these medical training programs because they didn't have them anywhere else.

I've always believed the two best anti-poverty programs are work and marriage.

It's hard to have that debate around secret programs authorized by secret legal opinions issued by a secret court. Actually, it's impossible to have that debate.

Reading has helped motivate me to become a spokesperson for programs like the WrestleMania Reading Challenge. It has motivated me to become more involved in my community and to keep learning new things.

Work-based learning is a game changer. It's like test driving a career, and I have seen it in action with our registered apprenticeship programs for high school students.