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Between the recent announcement that the Janesville GM plant will be shutting its doors, ongoing concerns about the economy and the rising unemployment rate, and now the devastating effects of extreme weather and flooding, the people of Wisconsin can be forgiven for wondering “what’s next?”

Nowhere is that more clear than with the economy. National and global concerns are being felt locally in a number of ways, and for every story about a business closing or suffering mass layoffs, there are countless individual, silent concerns about pink slips and making ends meet.

People are nervous, and I doubt if anyone is truly immune from the anxiety and sense of urgency that seems to get worse every time we open the newspaper.

I have a unique perspective when it comes to the economy. As the speaker of the Assembly and state representative for much of La Crosse County, I get letters, phone calls and e-mails every day from families throughout the state expressing that concern in no uncertain terms. And almost everyone, in their own way, asks me what we’re doing in Madison to make it better.

Over the last two years, my colleagues and I in the state Assembly heard this message loud and clear. We took the common-sense but all-too-rare step of truly looking beyond party lines to get something done. We passed a budget, a budget repair bill and more than a dozen separate pieces of legislation aimed at stimulating the economy, and each one of them passed out of our house with bipartisan or unanimous support.

We invested in our workers, by doubling the funding for the state’s Training Grant Program, increasing funding for the Youth Apprenticeship program and passing a higher education tax credit that helps employers invest in the education and training of Wisconsin workers.

We made investment easier in Wisconsin, with a tax incentive for companies that re-invest their capital gains in-state and an expansion of the Angel Investment program, which promotes investment in promising new small businesses.

We supported the needs of today and embraced the potential of tomorrow. For Wisconsin families, we passed child care assistance, tax cuts for paying for health insurance, real-world health-care reforms to give you more choices and control over your health-care decisions, and strong support of our transportation infrastructure.

For the jobs of the future, we passed tax credits for nanotechnology, bio-technology and renewable energy and incentives for businesses to innovate and keep ahead of the times. Manufacturing is a vital part of the Wisconsin economy today, but we owe it to future generations to set ourselves up as leaders in the jobs and opportunities of tomorrow as well.

And it’s worth noting that we did all this while working to keep more of your paycheck in your own pocket. I believe that especially in tough times, the government needs to look out for families and businesses first, and always put the needs of the taxpayers ahead of the wants of the tax spenders.

None of this would have been possible without working with both sides of the aisle to put politics aside and do what’s right for Wisconsin. Of course, we are aware of the limitations of being only one state, participating in a massive global economy that moves in uncontrollable waves, responding at times to unexpected fluctuations. The economic landscape is never the same from one day to the next, but I know that by working together and providing opportunities for each of us that work here in Wisconsin, we will make a difference in our economy.

Still, there’s a great deal more to be done. But as we’ve seen with neighbors helping neighbors during the recent storms, I believe that there is no problem so great that our state can’t overcome.

Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, represents the 94th District.