Steve Kagen for U.S. Congress Congress - Wisconsin's 8th District

The unprecedented Wall Street bailout bill brought before the U.S. House of Representatives by the Republican administration sought to reward high-powered financial speculators, not your family. It would not bring back the jobs we lost in New London, Waupaca, Marinette, Niagara, and Kimberly or help countless other workers in Wisconsin whose employers are struggling under the weight of unfair foreign competition, soaring health care costs, and an economy grossly mismanaged by President Bush and his friends.

That’s why I said no to bailing out Wall Street investment firms and yes to protecting the long term interests of Wisconsin taxpayers — because I work for you, not them.

The bill we voted on today was far better than the blank check originally sent over by the White House. House leaders worked long and hard to improve it and to inject as many taxpayer safeguards as they could. But the Bush Administration resisted them at every turn, insisting on gold-plated retirement packages for their Wall Street speculator friends who drove our nation’s financial institutions into the ditch and then expected, as always, to send taxpayers the bill for the wrecker service.

I was elected to represent the best interests of working families in Wisconsin, not Wall Street tycoons who couldn’t keep their financial houses in order. We have seen too many people lose their jobs and struggle just to keep their heads above water.

Today’s bill would not help them. It contained no guarantee that it would restore confidence in the markets for very long, and it left a deep financial mess behind for the next administration to clean up. Its potential effectiveness is far from clear. So is the answer to the critical question: who will ultimately profit from it?

Comprehensive health care reform would do far more to help millions of middle-class families and small business owners who are struggling to survive - but there was nothing in this bailout bill about that.

Lowering the price of gas at the pump and investing in our energy independence would ease the pressure on our economy and create millions of new jobs - but there was nothing in this bailout bill about that.

Investing in our crumbling infrastructure would provide many thousands of higher wage jobs, help commerce flow more efficiently and improve public safety - but there was nothing in this bailout bill about that.

It is time to get back to the basics. Let’s catch those who have broken our nation’s financial laws and punish them, clean up the economic mess they handed us, and then turn our attention to standing up for policies that favor families like yours, who work hard and play by the rules.

I just returned from an official mission in Iraq to evaluate the status of military, political and reconstruction efforts, which are being paid for with your tax dollars and carried out by many of your sons and daughters.

A formal report will be delivered soon to Congress, but as your representative, I wanted to give you a quick overview first.

What I saw was that we have the finest servicemen and women in the world. They are serving with courage and incredible skill, and we are fortunate to have Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker in charge.

Gen. Petraeus explained that many factors contributed to the recent decrease in ethnic killings: the increase in U.S. troops and a simultaneous increase of approximately 140,000 Iraqi forces, the long-awaited truce with Shia religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and recent military successes by the al-Maliki government in suppressing violent Shia militia in Basra.

The result? A fragile order and barely controlled chaos.

During my discussions with Gen. Petraeus, I learned that, to secure the 2.5 million Iraqis living in Baghdad’s Sadr City, it was necessary to surround the area with a tall, concrete barrier, keeping the citizens in and violent extremists out.

Even so, the day after we visited, several suicide bombers killed scores of innocent people. Concrete walls and more soldiers aren’t enough to secure peace in Iraq. A lasting peace requires a political solution.

Strong leadership, not terrorists, should determine who lives and who dies, and Ambassador Crocker offered a glimmer of hope.

The week before we arrived, Sunni and Shia legislators voted together, something they have not previously done because long-standing ethnic differences.

This is a rare and precious moment in time, an opportunity to work together. Only time will tell if they make the most of it.

We’re spending $400 million every day in Iraq, building schools, medical clinics, water treatment facilities, electric power plants and other critical infrastructure. Yet, when we met with U.S. inspectors in Baghdad responsible for keeping track of our tax dollars, they reported that they’re unable to travel to many of the new construction sites to examine facilities firsthand due to security concerns.

Instead, they rely on satellite images of the worksites. Oversight has become overflight.

Our soldiers have done everything we’ve asked of them, working in 140-degree heat and sandstorms that pump debilitating debris into their lungs. They are worn out — and so are U.S. taxpayers.

The reality is that we’re in the middle of an endless civil war that has no military solution, only a political one, according to those who know it best — our political ambassadors and military generals on the ground.

We’ve done what we can for the people of Iraq, while deferring our own needs here at home.

Rather than spending more of our hard-earned tax dollars rebuilding their country, it’s time to invest our money in our own communities again.

The Iraqi people can pay for their own construction projects. After all, they have a budget surplus from their windfall oil profits, while we’re paying record prices at the pump and sinking further into debt, due to our dependence on foreign oil and the administration’s failed borrow-and-spend economic policies.

It’s also time to move our brave soldiers away from Iraq. We should refocus our efforts on our real enemies — Osama bin Laden and his followers — and bring the rest of our soldiers, including those in our National Guard, home to the heroes’ welcome they’ve earned.

I heard it directly from our top military commander during my visit to Iraq: Our troops are stretched thin and can’t continue to tolerate the strain of an open-ended involvement in a never-ending religious civil war on the other side of the world.

Let’s move from “bring ‘em on” to “bring ‘em home.” Then, we can redirect the resources we’re spending over there to what matters most — higher-wage jobs, access to affordable health care, comprehensive services for our veterans and their families, better public schools and more affordable colleges, cleaner air and water, and a stronger economy for all of our Wisconsin communities.

(Congressman Steve Kagen represents Wisconsin’s 8th District)

Today’s impossible prices for oil have finally forced America to ask the essential question: “Where’s the Plan?”

We’re in a situation where every business, every homeowner, every retiree, every local and state government, and every U.S. citizen is being forced to live under ‘crisis planning’ – which is a recipe for failure.

On a national level, stumbling from crisis to crisis — from Iraq to Katrina to the current energy crisis - is not a plan to govern.

To become an energy independent nation, the first step we must take is to develop a plan. We must develop this plan together, out in the open – not behind closed doors.

A successful energy plan must include these three elements:

1. Drill for new oil in America, with any such oil obtained from within our territorial waters and national lands being sold to American citizens first. The Oil for America Act guarantees we do just that;
2. Invest in every form of renewable energy, and provide tax incentives for wind, solar, geo-thermal, biomass, cellulosic and any other form of clean, home-grown energy;
3. Prevent any price manipulation, or unfair practices in the world’s oil marketplace.

These three elements are the foundation for an independent energy future for America . Drill for new oil in America, Invest in renewable forms of energy, and Prevent energy price manipulation, everywhere in the world. And let’s make certain the more than 140 billion barrels of oil lying beneath our national boundaries and territorial waters are sold to Americans first.

(Congressman Steve Kagen represents Wisconsin’s 8th District)

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