[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11814]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      REPRESENTING MY CONSTITUENTS

  (Mr. WALZ of Minnesota asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Madam Speaker, I am told on a daily basis by 
my Republican colleagues what the American people want. I certainly 
respect the election certificates of my colleagues. I would ask they 
respect mine. I also am not sure where they find the time to travel to 
these other districts to hear what is being said. My colleagues and my 
constituents are telling me we were sent here to make democracy work, 
to come up with a balanced approach, and take this country's fiscal 
responsibilities seriously.
  The poll the gentleman just mentioned, in the CBS poll that came out 
yesterday, two-thirds of the American public want a balanced approach. 
That means a combination of cuts to revenues to balance our fiscal 
crisis. With that being said, we have a large number of Members who 
take pledges, pledges to not raise taxes, pledges to not ask oil 
companies to pay one penny more. The only pledge a Member of this House 
should ever make is when they raise their hand to serve the 
Constitution and this country.
  I'm also told many times in this House what the intent of our 
Founding Fathers was. Now, while that's open for debate, there is one 
thing I'm certainly positive about: When our Founders gathered 
together, they created a government, not a Wall Street bank.

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