Take my U.S. congressman, Jerry Moran (R-Kansas-01) just as an example. He has his weekly talking points from his party that he brings home to Kansas every weekend. He rarely discusses the many votes and actions that he takes in Congress that hurt struggling farming families, college students or veterans. He rarely admits that his votes in Congress serve the rich and advantaged.

So, it's left up to us - everyday citizens - to sort his out on our own. It's unfortunate that we have to do our own research, spend hours sorting out the hype from the truth. It's too bad that we can't trust our own representative to give us the whole truth.

So be it. We can find the truth if we look for it.

Jerry Moran is not a bystander. He's been making laws in Congress for 10 years. Moran votes. He legislates. Voting and legislating are critically important to all of us. We hired him to do that. His actions directly impact us everyday - and impact the people we care most about.

Moran often tells people that he cares about education. In February 2006, Moran voted to cut funding to student loans by $12.7 billion dollars. It is the largest single cut the federal government has ever made to student aid and is expected to increase the debt burden for students and their families. Surely some will drop out. Rather than cutting lender subsidies, the bill derives its savings by forcing borrowers to pay excessive interest rates on their loans and increasing interest rates for parents. $12.7 billion now gone from education.

He would like us to think, I'm sure, that he cares about working mothers since so many of our state's children are unfortunately being raised by single mothers. Twice, in both November 2005 and February 2006, Moran voted to cut billions of dollars from the child support enforcement funding given to state programs. Congress has always covered 88% of the costs of state child support enforcement and recently slashed it to 66% with the help of Moran's vote in February. Congress now estimates that the cuts Moran voted for will mean a loss of $8.5 billion to the states, and, still another $8.4 billion lost to single parents in uncollected child support due to enforcement cutbacks. I would have liked Moran to explain these votes to that sweet caller, but he didn't even mention it. Not a word.

Moran always visits hospitals in my congressional district. He says he cares about healthcare. OK, what do his votes tell us? In February 2006, Moran voted to cut federal spending to programs by $39.5 billion. Medicaid cuts will account for 27% of that $39.5 billion, and another 23% of it represents cutbacks in Medicare.

What he says he believes - versus - what he legislates. Words and actions seem mismatched, incongruent, even dissonant.

Moran's actions have resulted in about 9 million unfortunate people being unable to receive healthcare for the first time.

Why? Moran's votes led to new state healthcare co-payments that veterans, children, and seniors simply cannot afford. Congress estimated another 65,000 individuals will lose all Medicaid coverage outright. 80% of these new savings that Moran legislated will come from the forced decreased use of healthcare services.

Another 1.6 million people who continue to qualify for Medicaid have been denied many critical medical services they need. Fewer services to 1.6 million, 65,000 folks kicked out altogether, and 9 million suddenly unable to access healthcare at all. That's a lot of hurt.

It's certainly possible that Moran "cares about healthcare", perhaps in some business-oriented way. It doesn't matter. We need look no further than at his actual votes.

Do we want a Congressman that uses his legislative power to oust helpless people from their medical programs?

We need, instead, a Congressman that cares about the health of our grandmothers, our less fortunate neighbors, our hardworking students, and especially our veterans - and proves it to us with his actions.

See, it's not what the man says that matters - what matters is how the man votes.