Republican Progress Report

Last week, we sent out a survey asking for people’s thoughts on the first six months of the Republican Congress. Their grade so far? F

Usually with surveys like this, you don’t get to see all the responses. Well I can tell you that 92% of you said Republicans are “utterly failing to address issues important to me.”

But that doesn’t really capture the responses thousands of you wrote in. So today, I wanted to give you a taste of what survey respondents had to say:

We took hundreds of responses and made them into a word cloud. The bigger the word, the more often it appeared in the responses.

Many of these are not surprising. We need to end Citizens United and remove government obstruction. We need to protect Social Security and Medicare. We need to give people ladders into the middle class by addressing income inequality, by creating jobs, and investing in education.

But what struck me most about this word cloud is the size of the word “people.”

Behind every issue we debate in Washington, there are real people. There are elderly parents, family members, and friends who rely on Medicare and Social Security. There are children who need Head Start to begin their education, and Pell Grants to continue through college.

And thanks to the Affordable Care Act, there are millions of Americans who can see a doctor, get birth control, or afford prescriptions. Republicans seem to have forgotten that.

As a member of Congress, I know that families in South Florida rely on me to be their voice. I spend each and every day trying to make a difference for them. And I view that as my greatest responsibility.

But Republicans in Congress seem to have forgotten that very fundamental fact. They continually put tax breaks for the rich over programs for the less fortunate. They support companies that ship jobs overseas and cut funding for education. They rail against the Affordable Care Act and plan instead to put insurance companies back in the driver’s seat.

More results are pouring in every day. If you want to weigh in on how you think Republicans in Congress are doing so far, click here to take the survey.

I will continue to fight for middle class families, in South Florida and across the country. And I’m looking forward to seeing more responses.

– Debbie Wasserman Schultz