[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 5578]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   A CALL FOR ACTION FROM THIS NATION

  (Mr. WALZ asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. WALZ. Mr. Speaker, last night President Obama issued a call for 
action from this Nation. He clearly laid out the economic situation 
that we are in right now, but, more importantly, he laid out a plan for 
growth, a plan that started a week ago with the passage of the American 
Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
  What it did was it staunched the bleeding of jobs that we were losing 
at a rate of 600,000 in January, but it made a much more important 
investment in the future. President Obama laid out his priorities for 
the next budget, an investment in education, an investment in energy 
security and an investment in reining in the cost of health care.
  I represent the southern Minnesota district that includes the Mayo 
Clinic. I also represent a district that is a leader in wind production 
and biofuels, not just nationwide but internationally.
  I also had a guest last night, Chuck Ehler, the superintendent of a 
small school, Rushford-Peterson, in my district. That community was 
devastated by flooding that had a Federal disaster in 2007. It's a 103-
year-old building.
  The people and the citizens who will fuel our economic recovery are 
those citizens trying to learn in a building that will not work. We 
must invest in the future. That's how we repair our economy.

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