Out. Didnt mean they were going to eep him. He had republicans and democrats and everyone in the room, the staff, crying because he told the story, im a threetime convicted felon. He was a he was an addict. He was saying he had not touched drugs or alcohol for a year. He gets to see his family again. He gets to see his child again. And hes now up to 22 an hour and hes so busy working he hasnt had the chance to relapse. Its stories like that that need to be part of our lexicon. Its part of the joy that conomic growth is moral. Because it helps and solves so many problems and particularly in our earlier slides. Where itch a where i have this absolute fixation on Retirement Security and our discussion of growing the economy and labor force participation. And technology. And incentives. Bringing that package all together so we keep our promises around Social Security and medicare. But we have the first pillar, that we are living in right now. Thats proof that policy, mollcy can work. Whether its the tax policy we did a couple of years ago, or the regulatory changes we mbraced. Could you imagine the g. D. P. Growth by replacing nafta usmca, how many of our brothers and sisters in this place will drop their politics or their terror of giving this white house a victory and do whats good for the workers in this country . Actually the workers for all of north america. As supply chains move away from china, wouldnt we like to have them here in our hemisphere . Or do politics blind people to the point that basic economics and math and opportunity dont count . So back to one of the other things. My up this slide, one of Democrat Friends here brought this to my attention. Weve been working on this concept that there is a disruptive revolution coming in health care. Weve done presentations here on the floor many times of the thing you can blow into that tells you you have the flu. If we could legalize that it could order your antivirals except that technology is illegal under current law. But also, the concept of, in just a few months theres going to be a drug that cures hemophilia. Its going to be really expensive. But it will, for our brothers and sisters who have one of the most expensive diseases in our society, theyre cured. So what would happen to those numbers i was showing you on medicare if i came to you and said hey, theres one Disease Group thats 30 of medicare spending in the model for the next three decades . Turns out its diabetes. Its one of the reason this is body has been investing in things like the cures act. And other miracles that are now happening in what we call synthetic biology, in the new the new types of biological drugs that youve all seen the stories. Its still a bit of optimism. That we may be able to start growing pancreatic cells again. Could you imagine if we cured just diabetes . Its not only the noble thing of curing a disease thats part of our population, we often dont think, whats the economic cascade that has to actually that adds to Retirement Security . Turns out, if a third about 30 of medicare futures costs are just somehow related in first degree or Second Degree effects or third degree effects of diabetes, its part of the reason so many of those in this body have worked so hard to say put the money in. Lets invest in this disruption. Because i do believe if we could buy a calculateor for our members here and help them understand the Technology Disruptions that are going to make the environment, health care, and so many other things just amazing, we and then if we could legalize many of the technologies that oddly enough are illegal under our reimbursements and our rules today, theres some really Amazing Things. These next few decades could be just amazing. Particularly for my little 4yearold girl. T these Amazing Things dont happen when everything is political and everything is aponized and if its not a melodrama, we dent do it. We typically start with this but im going to close with it this time. Weve been trying to help our brothers and sisters in here understand, the old discussions of, well we could do this little bit of entitlement reform or raise taxes over here on do this. That fixes the fragility that is the future of particularly medicare. Those days are over. The math we lost that mathematical opportunity a decade and a half ago. Ut, theres a way to survive the debt bomb thats coming at us if we do the things that are necessary for economic expansion. Do the things that are necessary to encourage our brothers and sisters to be in the labor force. Actually embrace the Disruptive Technologies instead of being fearful of them. Sort of fearful of telling many of our incumbent Business Models that theyre going to have to adopt. And were going to have to tell the truth that within the benefits, we need incentives for you to think about if youre healthy and can stay in the labor force and the other thing is were going to have to actually talk about, just as mr. Yoho before me, things we do in immigration, in population stability. An immigration system that maximizes economic vitality. The talentbased system the president talks about. But even in a country where our birth rates have collapsed, how we encourage family formation. Because if you mix all these things together and a couple of good lucks with the technology, like that cures diabetes, we can make the math work. 103 trillion of debt that we expect over the next 30 years, substantially because of our demographics, does not have to destroy this country. Because we can cut that in half. If we do that, we have some amazing decades ahead of us. With that, madam speaker, i yield back to you. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. Under the speakers announced policy of january 3, 2019, the chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. Grothman, for 30 minutes. Mr. Grthman thank you. Rior to first mr. Grothman thank you. Mr. Grthman thank you. Prior to discussing imdwration id like to yield time to congressman duffy who i think will discuss some important issues and i hope everybody pays attention because i think other than perhaps lecturing us on logging and fishing and hunting this will be his last official speech as a congressman for a few years. So i cant im waiting im waiting here. I yield my time to my colleague, mr. Duffy. Mr. Duffy i want to thank my good friend from wisconsin for yielding tonight. Ive got to tell you, its a pretty unique and cool feeling to stand in this well and hold on to this podium for the last time. What an honor it is to serve in this house. And stand in this chamber. I want to take a moment as i give my last address to the house to thank my constituents. Who i have put so much faith who have put so much faith in me that they would give me the opportunity, a guy from small town wisconsin, who had a big family and grew up doing lumberjack sports, would give me the opportunity to come here and represent them. And theyve done that five times. Five times over. I would just note that they have been so kind to me. Whether they agreed with me or not, whether i was at a town hall or a lincoln day dinner or a dairy breakfast or a parade or affair, the kindness that has come from my constituents, as i have done my best to serve their interests, could not fill my heart with greater pride and joy to represent the good people of wisconsins seventh Congressional District which is the central northern and western part of our great state. But as many of us will tell you, i dont think our founders every envisioned that coming to this chamber would be a lifetime sentence. Were supposed to come and be citizen legislators an serve our time and then step aside and let someone else step forward and do the good work. And in news reports, as i have announced i was going to step aside, people will say that sean duffys seat i think we should correct that. It is not my seat. It was not my predecessors seat. Its the peoples seat. They get to choose every two years, or now this will be eight months in, a new congressman to represent them. It is the peoples seat. It is not mine. It is theirs. So thank you to the seventh district. I want to say thanks to my fellow colleagues and members of congress. On both sides of the aisle. We get a bad rap in this chamber, people will tell us, you guys are so dysfunctional, you guys cant get along, you guys cant get anything done. Theres some truth to that. Theres a lot of there is a lot of fighting. Yes, sometimes we dont get a lot done. But ill just tell you this. People get along a lot better across the aisle than might meet the eye on some of the major neutral zone networks. It may not be on tax reform or Immigration Reform, theres a lot of legislation we work on together that we try to try to find bipartisan compromise that cannot just pass our committees, but can pass the house and can get our you are dysfunctional friends in the senate to pick up and pass so we can get to the president s desk. It happens a lot. The chamber, i think, though, is going through some difficult times. We we are actually working. And im proud of that i just im proud to serve with my ranking member, patrick mchenry, who has been so kind and general russ to me. I have actually enjoyed with enjoyed serving with maxine waters. Some of the committees subcommittee chairs and ranking members like al green and lacy clay and Emanuel Cleaver have become good friends of mine and i honor their friendship and am grateful for it. But sometimes, oftentimes, we work better than were given credit for. I want to take a second because i think this is such an important part of the debate that were having today and talk about american capitalism. American capitalism is the american model. Its been our american way thats brought us more opportunity, more prosperity, more upward mobility, more innovation, more creativity, more generosity than any other country that has existed on the face of the earth. And part of that american capitalist system is an idea that, not that we have no government but that we have limited government. Not that we have no tax bus we have limited taxes. What you saw over two years of republicanled majority in the house and senate with republican president is, we did those things. And the net end result was what we thought it would be. We put people back to work. When i ran the first time, you know, nine years ago, we had people who couldnt find jobs. Family who were suffering. We would have i heard all the time families would say, i wish we had a better economy because i want my kids to be able to stay in our hometown and get a job in our hometown and raise their family in our hometown. So we can have an extended family. But they have to leave. They have to go to milwaukee or minneapolis or chicago. Or warsaw. Somewhere else to get a job. But they cant stay here. But today, after weve implemented these reforms, its profound whats happening. People are going back to work. In wisconsin, our wages are up and unemployment is down. We have more jobs in wisconsin than we have people to fill those jobs. Thats a Success Story of american capitalism. Im proud of that and though everybody may not agree that its been those policies that have created it, and some of those are on the left, when they dig deep in their heart, they cant deny that what weve done has made their lives better. And so often we have, in my district, its been the forgotten men and women, men and women who feel like people come to this chamber, to this town, and they engage in debates that are irrelevant, debates that dont make their lives better. Debate debates that dont improve their economy. Maybe its a debate that might improve the coast or, you know, global corporations, but its a debate that doesnt help their rural smalltown community. And theyve seen, over the last few years, that their voices have been heard, their pain has been heard, and its been addressed. And for that, they are incredibly grateful. When you shop at walmart, and you have a hard time figuring out where youre going to get the dollars to pay your mortgage, or how youre going to send your kids to school, and if you lose your job, that it all collapses, and in todays market, they look and go, this is really great. This is improve this has improved so much, we couldnt be more grateful for the economy and the system that is offered, this prosperity that we now feel. And im troubled that even though weve had the success of Free Enterprise system, an american capitalist system we now have a debate in this chamber where people want to go to a different model. Right . We have a debate saying we want to go to socialism. Socialism should be the model of americas future. And that the promise of socialism, where we can all be equal, and we can all get free stuff, we can just tax the rich a little bit more and give a little bit more to you and its going to be a beautiful economy. Those promises have been made throughout human history, and those promises always fail. Whether whether you want to go to the old whether you want to go to the Old Soviet Union or venezuela or cuba, it never works. This country fought socialism in europe. We fought socialism in our universities. And now were fighting socialism in the halls of congress . We cant lose this fight. Because if we lose this fight, we lose our future. And you lose the future, you dont leave anything off to your kid. So i hope that this chamber will recalibrate and think through what the best economic model is, to continue with that prosperity, continue with that opportunity for our kids and for our next generation. But as we talk about maybe a quality and opportunity about equality and opportunity, i do think theres an important point. The socialists talk about the equality of the outcome. I think our model has been the equality of opportunity. Communities k at in america and communities in wisconsin, and you can look at a zip code of that community and you will be able to recognize the opportunity and the poverty of the kids that are being raised in those communities, by their zip code, because of the School System they have in place in those communities and those zip codes, thats a travesty. That is not equal opportunity. That is given that is giving a group of kids the short end of the stick. And so, as ive been in this chamber, i have fought for School Choice. Because if youre a parent and youre a child and you have a Failing School, you should have the opportunity to get out of your Failing School and go to a school that is going to give you the skill sets and the tools to take advantage of the Great American economy. You should have that right, you should have the you should have that option and that School Choice. I would love if kyo make the schools better in these if we could make the schools better in these communities and we should fight to do, that but these kids cant wait. So i hope the fight for School Choice continues. Ive fought in this chamber for free trade. But ive also fought with our president for fair trade. And when we have people who take advantage of this economy, of my constituents, and say its free trade, well, free trade isnt free trade if its not fair trade. And i couldnt support the president more in his fight against china, to make sure that we have a fair system with their growing economy. And its not easy. I look in this chamber. Oftentimes theres not a lot of political courage. But you have a president who one of the greatest things he has going for him is the great economy. And hes willing to jeopardize this great economy to risk the great economy and engage in a trade conflict with china not to help him in the next election, but to help American Kids in the next 10, 15, 20 years. Thats what real leaders do. Thats what courage is in a leader and thats what our president has done on this trade fight. Risking the economy for the kids and ow fewer you to and our future, to make sure were still the number one economy and the number one military. One of the great issues im proud to have fought on is the issue of life. Dont think that there is anyone who is more vulnerable, more voiceless than the unborn. And to have been in this been able to have to let my voice lend my voice to those who dont have one has been an amazing honor. And i think that this will be a scourge at this time period in American History and weve had the time these time periods in our past. In our past that we havent stood up and fought, which science tells us, as you look at a 4d ultrasound, what that baby is in the womb. And i am on the right side of history, to have fought for the millions of little babies who have lost their lives over the course of the last 40plus years. And i hope this chamber one day can see that life does begin at conception, that we shouldnt be having a debate about lateterm partial birth abortion, we shouldnt be having a debate about how we allow children to die more comfortably after theyre born, that that is outrageous. Its frankly disgusting. And that we should get that right. , i close my final remarks from this well remarks from this well, i want to thank my team. Any member of congress, anyone who has serve anyone who serves in this institution cant do it without great people with them, great people surrounding them, fighting not with them personally, but fighting on the issues with them. It doesnt work. And over the course of the last 8 1 2 years ive had the most remarkable team to serve with me and work with me and though they have worked for me, they are some of my best friends who have stood with me and i couldnt be more grateful that they have come into my life and come into my district, in our community, and not just fought so hard with me, but fought so hard for the people that i represent, to make sure their issues are covered, to make sure that their voices were heard. And they helped me amplify my constituents voice and i want to thank pete in my District Team specifically, in jesse, or pete in the d. C. Team, and jesse in the District Team for their endless effort. And my constituents are well served by them. So thank you. And finally, i want to thank my family. When i started, i didnt have as many kids. And actually i have patrick and margarita and paloma who didnt know their father at any point o