[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 197 (Thursday, December 13, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H10200-H10202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FAREWELL TO CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Messer) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. MESSER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to greet the 
House today. My speech today is intended to be my farewell to this 
Chamber after serving in this Chamber, proudly representing Indiana's 
Sixth Congressional District, over the last 6 years.
  I rise today at a time of tragedy in Indiana's Sixth Congressional 
District. At Dennis Intermediate School in Richmond, Indiana, there was 
a shooting today. On behalf of everyone in Indiana's Sixth 
Congressional District, I

[[Page H10201]]

would like to express our condolences for the deaths that occurred 
there. Our hearts, prayers, and minds go out to all the families and 
kids in the school who are there.
  This is, frankly, an epidemic, Mr. Speaker, in our country. It is a 
great tragedy. Every kid in America ought to be able to go to school 
where they feel safe. We need to do more with school security and more 
to handle mental health challenges. We need to do more to repair the 
moral fabric of this society, Mr. Speaker, so that our kids can go to 
school and feel safe.
  Now to my final greeting to this Chamber and to the people of 
Indiana's Sixth Congressional District.
  I today rise first to say thank you and also to provide maybe some 
thoughts about a compass forward.
  First, and most importantly, after both 6 years here in this Chamber, 
time serving in the Indiana General Assembly, and working very hard 
over most of the last two decades for the people of Indiana, I want to 
say thank you, first, to God, who gave our family great peace and 
strength through all of this time and all of these incredible journeys 
together.
  Secondly, I say thank you to my family. When you serve in something 
like the United States Congress, you tend to have yard signs that have 
your name on it, but it takes a family, a team of people, to help make 
this happen.
  I want to thank my wife, Jennifer, for all of her patience and 
incredible wisdom throughout our service and time together.
  I want to thank my kids--Emma, Ava, and Hudson--for all their 
incredible support and inspiration.
  Certainly, I want to thank my mother, Chris, who raised my brother 
and me on her own when I was a kid growing up in Greensburg, Indiana. 
She recently retired from the Delta Faucet factory and has been an 
inspiration to me throughout my life.
  I want to thank my father, who certainly has shown love and has been 
rooting for me all along the way; my grandparents who are a great 
inspiration to us as well; my brother, Rich; and just so many others.
  I want to thank my team, two of my teammates, the two real leaders of 
our team. They don't know I am going to give them a shout-out today, 
but Doug Menorca and Amy Burke, I thank them for all their incredible 
work and the dozens and dozens and dozens of people who have been a 
part of our efforts. Again, it takes a team to get this work done.
  I want to thank the people of Indiana and the people of Indiana's 
Sixth Congressional District because there is no way to serve in this 
job unless people select you to give you the opportunity to do so.
  Every day that we have served in this job, I have tried to do my best 
to represent the values and beliefs of the people of Indiana's Sixth 
Congressional District and to the best of our ability discern and 
provide wisdom to do what is best for the United States of America.
  I have also been somebody who has been very blessed with a lot of 
mentors. Almost a generation ago, Hillary Clinton used an African 
proverb to entitle a book. She used the proverb, ``It takes a village 
to raise a child.'' Unfortunately, that phrase became a bit of a 
partisan volleyball because the reality is it takes a family to raise a 
child.

  I was blessed to have a great mother who helped lead our family. But 
my brother and I were like so many others. We had teachers, ball 
coaches, friends, and families from the church, and neighbors and 
friends along the way--mentors--who helped lead me and helped build a 
future and make my career possible. There are too many of those folks 
to name, but they know who they are, and I want to say thank you.
  The last thing I want to talk about is a little bit about this 
Chamber and, most importantly, those four words that stand there above 
the Speaker, the phrase, ``In God We Trust,'' because I speak to this 
floor today and I leave this Chamber at a time of great political 
turmoil in our country. There are a lot of folks frustrated across 
America, and, frankly, they are frustrated for good reason.
  I grew up in America. When I was a kid growing up in a small town in 
the 1970s and 1980s, I can tell you I never had one doubt that, if I 
worked hard and I stayed focused, I could have an opportunity to do 
great things in this country. When I was little, my mom thought that. 
She taught my brother and me that. As I got old enough, I decided I 
guess I believed that, too, and I knew it to be true every moment of my 
life.
  We now in this great country and in this Chamber are debating issues 
because too often there are Americans who don't believe that anymore. 
There are kids who grow up in this country and worry whether they will 
ever have a chance to succeed.
  It is not right. Often these folks feel failed by the institutions of 
this great country. The truth is in many ways these institutions are 
failing. Too often we are not able to solve the big challenges of this 
Nation in this Chamber.
  Mr. Speaker, you have an ever-growing Federal bureaucracy that, 
frankly, at times is far more concerned about self-perpetuating its own 
self-interests than it is in delivering for the good of the American 
people. I do want to assure the American people and the people of 
Indiana's Sixth Congressional District, though, the problem is not the 
basic decency of the people in this Chamber.
  I came to Congress like a whole lot of other people figuring that the 
wisdom of any constituent in the Sixth Congressional District was a 
whole lot smarter than most of the people who were here, because if 
these folks were as smart as they should be, then a whole lot of 
problems would already have been solved. What I found when I came here 
is I haven't met one person serving in this Chamber who is trying to 
hurt America.
  I have met a lot of people who may have a very different political 
viewpoint than me, who may have a different set of values, and who may 
believe we need to take the country in a different direction than I 
believe, but, really, probably the most remarkable thing I found in my 
6 years in this Chamber is that the vast majority of people I have 
gotten to spend time with across the aisle and in our own caucus wake 
up every day, make great sacrifice, and love their country trying to do 
better.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not smart enough to tell you what we are going to 
do to fix many of the challenges in this Chamber, but I think the basic 
answer is this: We have to empower the American people by better 
empowering their individual Member of Congress to push this body and 
make things happen.
  I fought for that some and had some small victories in my time in 
Congress. My hope for my colleagues, as I leave this place, is that 
they will have more success in trying to drive a process that makes 
that happen.
  But beyond that--I have said this often in my own district, and I 
will say it here again as I start to leave this Chamber--I think we 
need to have a little bit of humility about where we are as a country, 
because I will concede to you that these are tough times. As the old 
Harry Truman line once said:

       A recession is when your neighbor loses their job, a 
     depression is when you lose yours.

  Mr. Speaker, if you are struggling today, those struggles are real, 
and I do not want to diminish them. But I also think it is important to 
remember that this is a nation that has been through great trials 
before. This is a nation that has been through a Revolutionary War, a 
Civil War, a Great Depression, a couple of World Wars, and the Cold 
War. In recent years, we have fought the battle on terror.
  We have been through tough challenges before, and every time we have 
risen, as a nation, to meet them. I believe the biggest reason why is, 
again, these four words above the Speaker's rostrum there: ``In God We 
Trust.''
  It has been an incredible honor over the last 6 years to bring 
literally hundreds of people into this Chamber to see this hallowed 
Hall of public policy debate. Every time I have come into this Chamber, 
I have pointed to those four words.
  You see, Mr. Speaker, those four words represent the essence of the 
American promise. We spend a lot of time in this Hall talking about the 
importance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
  Do you know what?
  That debate is merited. It is incredibly important, the Constitution 
and

[[Page H10202]]

the Bill of Rights. But, frankly, I don't think we spend enough time 
talking about where those rights come from.
  I believe the most important document that this Nation has ever seen 
is the first document that founded it, the Declaration of Independence, 
where it says, in the second paragraph: ``We hold these truths to be 
self-evident, that all men''--and we now come to understand, of course, 
men and women--``are created equal, that they are endowed by their 
creator with certain unalienable rights.''
  Because those rights come from our creator, they are inalienable, and 
they cannot be taken from you.
  Every nation before us had a different point of view. They believed 
that rights somehow came from God to a ruler, who then just decided 
what privileges he was going to bestow out to you.
  That is not what we believe in America. We believe ``In God We 
Trust,'' that our rights come from God.

                              {time}  1245

  Ronald Reagan said, a couple of generations ago:

       We are one Nation under God. And if we ever forget it, we 
     will be one Nation gone under.

  I think, as we look as a Nation at this time, and we look for a 
compass to drive us forward, we don't need to look any further than 
those four words.
  America is not like any other Nation that came before us. We are a 
Nation that has been blessed time and time and time again. In moments 
of crisis, the right leaders have emerged. The American people have 
rallied, and we have done what every other generation before us has 
done: left this Nation better than we found it.
  There is no reason to believe that we can't do that again. All we 
have to do is go back to founding principles and stand for the things 
that have always made this Nation great.
  I am too competitive of a person to tell you that I am glad that I 
didn't win my last election and that I am now leaving this Chamber. Of 
course, I would love to be serving in the United States Senate. That is 
not what God had in store for our family. That is not what the people 
of Indiana decided would happen.
  But I want to tell you this: I leave this Chamber optimistic and 
happy. I am optimistic for this incredible country and the amazing 
future we have in store. I am optimistic for the Messer family and all 
the great adventures we have yet to come.
  I am grateful that a little kid who grew up in a single-parent family 
in Greensburg, Indiana, had an opportunity to serve this Nation in a 
Chamber like this one. I want to tell every little boy and girl who is 
growing up in America today: You can, too. Just remember, in God we 
trust.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________