“I think courage is on the ballot,” he said in an interview with Patch Friday. “What I mean by that is Governor (Scott) Walker went after some of the root causes of the structural problems in the state budget.”

People might not have liked the way Walker went about budget reform, Ryan added, but going after some of the causes of the state’s deficit took a lot of guts.

“The majority of local budgets are labor,” the Republican congressman said. “So I think the message beyond Wisconsin is, don’t try and tackle these problems. If you do, as a state legislator or a governor, this is what can happen to you.”