Ron Kind: “On a lighter note, this will be one of the last opportunities that I will have to address this Chamber as Representative…”

“On a lighter note, this will be one of the last opportunities that I will have to address this Chamber as Representative of the people of the Third Congressional District of western and north central Wisconsin. It has truly been the honor of my life, but Tawni and I decided last summer that it shouldn't be the honor for our entire lives, so we decided to make this our last term after 26 years of serving the people back home. As a kid growing up on the north side of La Crosse, Madam Speaker, if someone had told me, the son of a telephone repairman, that I would one day be serving in a place like the United States Congress, I would have thought they were crazy. I thought this was a place where only the politically connected, the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, or those with great wealth, would come to. I guess I am a living example that if you want to serve your Nation, there are still opportunities to do so at all levels. I had a chance to cut my political teeth as a college undergrad with one of my political icons and heroes back home, Senator Bill Proxmire. From him, I learned the importance of fiscal responsibility, something that I have tried to practice each year in Congress, tried to instill in my colleagues, the need for us to balance our books. I was a big advocate back in the 1990s when I joined this Congress for pay-as-you-go budgeting rules, which is a simple concept.…”