For the last few weeks we’ve heard that the Obama Administration is going to focus its attention once again on jobs. Great, because we’ve seen how well that’s worked in the past, spending hundreds of billions of dollars to see our unemployment rate skyrocket to 10%

This “focus back on jobs” line is a symptom of a much bigger problem: the Administration and Democratic leadership not being able to focus long enough on the issues people care about to solve them. And when they try, they act completely opposite of what the American people want and expect.

Leaders in Washington chose to takeover health care, make permanent the bailouts for Wall Street, and now want to drive up energy costs with cap-and-trade.  They could have chosen tax relief for all Americans, pro-job growth business policies or reduced the costs of health care without spending a trillion-dollars and growing the size of government and bureaucracy.

Republicans are ready to abandon these old ways of closed door deals and elitist policy discussions, ways that have to be honest, lured Republicans off the path of limited government and limited spending in years past.  This time, we’re turning to you, the American people.

We want you to let us know what you want funded and what you don’t, what programs you disagree with and what solutions you’d like to see us explore. AmericaSpeakingOut.com is an innovative, transparent and honest initiative that will allow you to do just that. Instead of Washington telling you what’s best, you can now take control.

Minnesota has a long and treasured history of civic participation, so I’m expecting plenty of ideas and thoughts from my home state.  And I hope that with help from the rest of the Country, we can right this ship and restore America’s greatness.