The 109th Congress, which returns to Washington after the Labor Day holiday, will be remembered as one of the least responsive to the needs of working people.

The rising costs of energy, health care and college tuition are taking bigger bites out of middle-class paychecks. Congress has not addressed effectively these pocketbook concerns, devoting time instead to doomed sideshows on items such as flag desecration and same-sex marriage.

Congress' fallow record at least yields a bumper crop of questions for incumbents seeking reelection in the coming midterms, and the challengers trying to unseat them.

Do you favor an immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq? If so, how would you meet our nation's moral obligation to stabilize a country we invaded? How do you respond to experts who predict a full withdrawal would: unleash a civil war that would destabilize the whole, oil-rich region; make Iraq a breeding ground for global terrorism; and make us less safe?

A record 46.6 million people in the United States - 16 percent - lacked medical insurance in 2005. That number included 8.3 million children. What would you do to make health coverage more available and affordable? Is the old model of workplace-based coverage crumbling? What should replace it?

Wages and salaries for the average worker are barely increasing, job growth is so-so, and the poverty rate in your region's core city sits at 24 percent, but corporate profits are soaring. Evidence mounts that a disproportionate percentage of the wealth generated in the current economic recovery is flowing to those at the top of the income heap. What is the correct federal response to this growing inequality?

It's a year after Katrina. Despite hand-wringing and vows, the nation still doesn't have anything resembling an urban policy - for at-risk cities ranging from New Orleans to Philadelphia. What is yours?

No Child Left Behind, is up for reauthorization next year. Would you scrap the program and start over, or try to improve it? If the latter, how?

Congress in December cut more than $12 billion from student loan programs and increased the interest rates of some college loans. Did you support those measures? What are you views on how to make a college education more affordable?

Social Security still faces a financial crisis. If you don't like the president's notion to allow workers to invest payroll taxes in the stock market, how would you address it?

. (For Democrats) Some leading House Democrats have spoken of impeaching the president. Would you support this? If not, what steps do you favor to bolster what has been weak congressional oversight of the executive branch?

(For Republicans) If Republicans keep control of Congress, does the majority need to display more independence from, and oversight of, the executive branch? What steps would you favor?

Do you favor the Senate bill that would allow some illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship? Or the House approach, which stresses border security and deportation?

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