Amtrak offers riders a cost-effective way to travel throughout the country.

As a personal beneficiary of the service that Amtrak provides and as someone who represents a congressional district that counts on safe, reliable rail service, I am a strong supporter of providing this vital industry the funding necessary to continue operations.

Commuter rail systems would be faced with major roadblocks and possible route elimination if Amtrak lost funding.

For a variety of reasons, we are not producing at a given level of economic activity the jobs we used to have.

Foreign trade clearly has been a reason why inflation has been low.

Foreign trade clearly holds down the cost of products we buy.

However, this President sees no problem eliminating funding for Perkins Loans in his budget, even though the cost of tuition is rising and will continue to rise as the administration's policies force inflation.

I have been hearing from constituents all across Long Island who feel double-crossed and double-taxed by this undue tax burden.

In addition to joblessness, of course, by the working of supply and demand, when you have a larger number of people unemployed, wages do not rise at the normal level, so that we had last year a drop in real wages.