Democratic Candidate - Wisconsin's 5th District, U.S. House of Representatives

I’m always excited to hear that someone has received an award. As a devoted baseball fan, I follow with particular interest the Cy Young and Gold Glove awards in Major League Baseball.  As a parent, I take great pleasure in seeing the ribbons and awards my daughter receives at school and at play.

So it was with initial excitement that I noticed in Congressman Sensenbrenner’s recent newsletter that he had received an award, an “A rating” from the National Taxpayer’s Union.  Truth be told, my initial excitement was probably a little overblown. It quickly dawned on me that he has basically won an award for doing absolutely nothing. Exactly that … nothing. 

It appears that if you make a career out of not bringing any of our hard-earned tax dollars back to the district, you can win an award for it. That seems a little backwards, frankly. Using this kind of rationale, I should have won at least five or six different trophies for not doing what I was supposed to be doing last year. Count among them the “Didn’t clean out the garage” plaque and the ever popular “Forgot to put away the milk” trophy.

Congressman Sensenbrenner is probably happy with his award. He shouldn’t be. He was recently “awarded” a grade of “F” by themiddleclass.org, a site that lists how our elected officials voted on issues designed to assist the middle class. I firmly believe that the middle class in our district would much rather see him work hard to meet their needs, rather than chase after meaningless awards.

As the representative for Wisconsin’s 5^th Congressional District, I’ll shoot for a different kind of award, one that will recognize my success in bringing our tax dollars back home and using them to create job opportunities and shore up struggling businesses.

Hard work towards meeting the needs of my district will be its own reward.

Recent stories in the news have got me thinking about how hypocritical it is for certain Republican politicians to oppose spending federal dollars on revitalization projects for their districts when leaders in their own party are wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on self-indulgent, morally dubious expenditures such as private jets, five-star hotels, and strip clubs.

Unfortunately, Wisconsin’s 5^th Congressional District has not been immune to wanton expenditures. Congressman Sensenbrenner has spent hundreds of thousands of lobbyist and taxpayer dollars on “junkets” and get-aways to wealthy European countries like Lichtenstein.

Now, luxury travel to Lichtenstein and strip-club business “meetings” certainly belong on different ends of the ethical spectrum. But the underlying problem with both is the same: spending other peoples’ money in ways that most of us would consider to be extravagant, wasteful, and offensive.

When you donate to my campaign you can rest assured that your donation will be used in efficient and cost-effective ways and most certainly not on wining and dining big donors at strip clubs. And when you send me to Washington, DC, as your representative in Congress, you can count on me to use your taxpayer dollars wisely and to put the needs of our district—not the needs of lobbyists—first.

Even if it means having to turn down an all-expenses paid trip to Lichtenstein.