[wordsmythe]

We need new faces in Congress, which has become a place of partisanship and gets nothing done. Congress has become an institution incapable of solving the pressing issues like Social Security, health care and tax reform.

Members of Congress spend a good portion of their time raising money for the next election and use pork barrel spending as way to win re-election.

One might yearn for the old days when Democrats and Republicans actually worked together to reform Social Security and taxes.

Leadership in both political parties in Congress isn't representing the interests of ordinary people. They are concerned with scoring political points rather than advancing people's interests.

The average voter values bipartisanship over partisanship. They respect politicians who cross party lines to solve issues that are of value to voters, not to their respective political parties.

I ask my fellow voters to remember when Republican Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas and the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat from New York, worked on the issue of Social Security. Moynihan and Dole were key players in helping reform the Social Security Trust Fund in 1983. Without their leadership in Congress, elderly people like my grandmother wouldn't have gotten their monthly checks from the Social Security Administration.

We need Republicans and Democrats putting partisanship aside and trying to meet the needs of voters.

As we near the election for Congress, we need a new generation of congressional leaders who aspire to be like Dole and Moynihan. We need new faces in Congress to solve issues like Social Security, health care, tax reform and terrorism. Voters like politicians who represent their interests, not the special interests.