Mr. KAGEN: Madam Speaker, my good friend Mr. Ryan from Wisconsin, I was elected to send a message to Congress to balance its budgets and to be fiscally responsible. As PAUL RYAN notes, in Wisconsin thousands of hardworking people have lost their jobs; and when they lost their manufacturing jobs offshore, much of the wealth of this Nation was sent offshore along with those jobs.

We need a positive change in America, and it needs to start now, right here and right now in the people’s House. Let’s begin to build a better future for everyone by dedicating ourselves to becoming fiscally responsible today, not next week. And then when we do, let’s ship our values overseas and not our jobs.

I rise before you today to urge you to support pay-as-you-go as a means to become fiscally responsible. We cannot realistically begin to solve the many problems we face until we completely reverse the misguided fiscal policy of borrow and spend, and borrow and spend, and borrow and spend, which has driven our country into more debt than our children can possibly repay. Let us agree to live within our means here in the House as we do in our own homes back in Wisconsin.

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