The debt crisis could “ruin America,” and the nation should be “sickened” by Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade its outlook on U.S. debt to negative, according to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

“How many more warning signs will it take for Washington to realize we are facing a debt crisis that will ruin America?” Rubio said Monday in a statement.

Real estate tycoon Donald Trump's possible presidential bid ought to be taken seriously, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) said.

"I would not push him aside," Inouye said Monday. 

The nine-term senator sat down with the Civil Beat editorial board for a wide-ranging interview.

He had harsh terms for the "birther" movement, which questions President Obama's citizenship. Trump has also questioned Obama's birth place.

"What kind of nonsense is that?" Inouye said. "I can imagine someone who doesn’t know anything or hardly reads the papers coming out with statements like that, but not a billionaire. And there are a lot of them like that."

He also noted the 2012 election is "not going to be easy for Democrats." The party is attempting to win back control of the House and keep the majority in the Senate next year.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes.

In a letter addressed Monday to the FDA, Blumenthal said the agency should ban menthol cigarettes because they encourage young people to smoke.

To the delight of reporters everywhere, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) last week introduced legislation that would establish a committee to investigate the endless delays routinely faced by people seeking information from the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Sherman's bill, H.R. 1564, would set up the Commission on Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays, which would have 12 commissioners. Four would be picked by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and four more would be chosen by the House Committee on Government Reform.

Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) last week reintroduced legislation that would create a space on federal tax returns for taxpayers to make donations to the federal government, a move aimed at letting wealthy Americans who argue they should be taxed more to surrender as much money as they wish.

In an interview with The Hill, Campbell said his bill, the "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act," is a response to comments from Barbra Streisand, Warren Buffett, President Obama and others who have said they should be taxed more.

"That's fine, we ought to make it easier for you to do that," Campbell said. "As far as I can tell, they don't do it, maybe because they can't figure out how to do it."

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) suggested Republicans misread their mandate from the 2010 election.

By proposing reforms in their 2012 budget plan that would turn Medicare into a voucher program, Franken said the GOP had handed Democrats a powerful election tool that could turn the tables on Republicans in the 2012 election.

Discrimination against gays and lesbians could soon be a thing of the past, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said in an interview for the May edition of Playboy magazine.

"Same-sex marriage as a divisive issue is losing its steam," he said. "Overall I think anti-gay prejudice is on its way out."

Frank is one of four openly gay members of the Congress and an outspoken advocate for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual rights. 

The 16-term lawmaker said that even though the fight to force the federal government to recognize gay marriage has slowed, more and more states are beginning to move in that direction.

“I don’t see anything about gay marriage happening on a federal level," said Frank. "More and more states will go that way, though."

"When they do, people will see … that there are no negative consequences," he continued. "Places that have gay marriage have had none of the negative consequences that people warned us about. Zero. The divorce rate hasn’t gone up. There have been no calamities. Marriage hasn’t lost its meaning."

Legislation by Rep. Tom Reed would use a debt clock as a "visual gesture" of the need to reduce spending.

With the House adjournment on Friday afternoon, both the House and Senate are out on spring recess until Monday, May 2.

There are few signs of what the House might take up when it returns, although consideration of a bill to repeal the requirement that states set up health insurance exchanges is likely. The House planned on taking up that bill, H.R. 1213, this week, but it was postponed due to votes on the fiscal 2011 and 2012 budgets.