mr. speaker , i want to thank the gentleman from texas . 
and i would like to commend him for meeting with the students and working with the students from grace high school in tyler , texas , and for their study , their caring about the free enterprise system and seeking greater information on that . 
how exciting that they are doing that . 
you know , mr. speaker , one of the things we are hearing from business schools all across the country , one of the things we are hearing from high schools , from tech schools is that more and more people are saying , i want to be an entrepreneur . 
i want to start my own business . 
i want to see if i can grab on to that american dream of owning my own company , starting a company , having an idea , watching that idea come to fruition in the form of a company that creates jobs . 
and it is so encouraging to me that the republican leadership and our majority in this house is committed to doing the things that are going to be necessary to continue economic growth , long-term sustained economic growth like we have seen over the past 40 months . 
i have got another article from washingtonpost.com that i had pulled today . 
this one is really interesting . 
construction spending rose a strong seven-tenths of a percent in january , a month when generally they are not going to see that kind of increase . 
this pushed total construction activity to a record high of just over $ 1 trillion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate and followed an even larger 1.2 percent rise in december . 
what we are seeing is confidence and belief and the fact that people believe in the strength of this economy . 
we have a freshman member from kentucky ( mr. davis ) xz4006331 who has joined this congress this year . 
he is with us for just a few moments to talk about some of the good things that are happening in his state . 
i yield to the gentleman from kentucky . 
