Farewell to the Senate

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I have had the pleasure of working with my chairman on the Budget Committee on budget reform initiatives, and I want to take this occasion to thank him for the wonderful way in which he worked with me on those issues and for all of his support.

I want to make a pledge to him as well. The effort began with a lot of hearings in the Budget Committee to sort out how we could reform what we were doing. At the moment, the Budget Committee is, probably, the most dysfunctional piece of this dysfunctional institution, and Chairman Enzi was determined to remedy that. A lot of work went in at the committee level. Then a bicameral committee was created to look at budget reform, primarily out of the House, and I had the opportunity to serve on that bicameral committee. That was an opportunity that I owe to Chairman Enzi. He both advocated for me to his leader that I should be on that committee, and he gave up a spot on that committee to make sure there was a spot for me there. I hope and believe that I conducted myself in due accord with Chairman Enzi's wishes and principles in the course of that.

We had the ability to use that bicameral committee process to do a test run of our budget reform, and I am pleased to report that, although the end product was never adopted between the two bodies, the product that came out of the committee included our budget reform as it was then constituted. We raised our aspiration from the budget reform as it was then constituted, which was entirely voluntary, to actually try to change the Budget Committee's rules to force the process of the Budget Committee into the mold of the voluntary structure. We did good work on that, and we came to an agreement. I am sorry to say that its failure to pass into law arose not from problems on the Republican side of the aisle but from problems on my side of the aisle that I have been unable to yet surmount.

My pledge to you, Chairman Enzi, is that I will keep at it. Senator Blunt is here, and he is helpful in that regard. Senator Lankford and Senator Perdue are here, and we have a good team, along with Senator Kaine, Senator King, myself, and others on our side--another being Senator Shaheen.

So I will continue the work. I vow to you that I will somehow find a way to get this done, and if I can find a way to call it the Enzi reform, I will find a way to call it the Enzi reform.

I will long remember the relationship we had and the good work we did together. I will long remember your 80/20 rule. And maybe--because I have a similar proposal in Rules--maybe we will even be able to get your phones and electronics amendment passed.

So thank you to you, sir, for doing what is right, doing your best, and treating others as they would want to be treated.

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