| October 28, 2006 | Don Seymour
Press Secretary
202-225-6205
|
Working to Build a Better Future
Back in my days at Moeller High School, I had the great fortune of playing football for the legendary Gerry Faust. In his time with Moeller, he produced a 174-17-2 record, including several seasons undefeated. The secret, Coach Faust told us, was simple: if we worked hard, worked together as a team, and believed we were going to win, we would.
If you think about it, Coach Faust’s formula is the same one that has driven the American spirit since the early days of our Revolution. The Founding Fathers and our many ancestors possessed a deep and passionate belief in hard work, teamwork, and optimism -- a vision of a better future and the faith that they could build it. When you boil it down, this is what it means to be an American.
I’ve worked hard to live by this formula throughout my career, but I’d be lying if I said I knew where it would take me. In fact, I never expected to be doing what I am today. I grew up down in Reading with my eight brothers and three sisters. My dad owned a tavern that today is run by my sister. We didn’t have a lot, but like many families we made things work by pitching in and taking care of one another.
After high school I worked a series of jobs during the day and attended night classes at Xavier University. After earning a degree in business I accepted a sales job for a plastics and packaging company in Cincinnati, and eventually rose to become president of the firm.
All this time I had little if any interest in politics. Heck, my family and I considered ourselves Democrats, if anything. Politics was something other people did. Me? I just wanted to work and earn a living.
But the more involved I became in my business, the more I saw that I couldn’t avoid politics. To me, the backbone of America is our free enterprise system -- the “goose that lays the golden egg.” With crippling tax rates and needless regulations, it seemed as if government was doing everything it could to strangle that goose. It was then I realized I was a Republican.
With Ronald Reagan as my political role model, I got started as a township trustee and then eventually ran for the state legislature. When I was first elected to Congress in 1990, I worked with fellow members of the reform-minded “Gang of Seven” to push legislation limiting government’s influence in our everyday lives. Here we are sixteen years later and we’re still doing it, cleaning up a mess that was forty years in the making.
We’ve had a lot of success this year in particular: we’ve passed critical tax relief, necessary reforms to help ensure workers’ pensions are there when they retire, and new earmark rules that will limit the amount of wasteful spending. We’ve given the President the tools he needs to wage and win the Global War on Terror, and we’ve begun the hard work of securing our borders. But we have plenty more to do.
Trust me, I take Coach’s advice with me to work every day. My goal is to help build a better future for our children and grandchildren by reforming our government, expanding our economy, and ensuring our nation is safe from foreign threats. These will continue to be my goals. I have a vision of a better future and I am working to help build it.
It has been a true honor and a pleasure serving you for these last sixteen years. I couldn’t ask for better friends, neighbors, and constituents than I have here in southwest Ohio. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your continued support.
###
