Remembering Mike Enzi

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, before I begin, I want to join with my colleagues from Wyoming and my other colleagues here in the Senate and express my sorrow at the news received this morning that our former colleague Senator Mike Enzi had passed away.

Mike was a cherished colleague and one of the finest human beings you will ever meet. A former Budget Committee chairman, he was, in many ways, the conscience of the Senate on spending issues, always reminding Members that Federal dollars are not unlimited and that every dollar we add to the debt is a burden we are placing on our children and grandchildren.

One of my favorite memories of Mike happened a few years ago when he was a neighbor next door in the State of Wyoming. He was someone, as I said, for whom I had tremendous respect. He was always a gentleman. He had something that, I think, in politics is really rare, and that is, he would deal with big policy issues here in Washington, DC, but he always retained his common touch. He had a terrific way of connecting with people on a very personal level.

I remember I was experiencing heel pain from overrunning, which, it turns out, was plantar fasciitis, and I happened to mention it to Mike, who at one time was a shoe salesman and a shoe store owner. Well, it isn't more than a day later or so when he comes up to me and he has a solution. He had some heel inserts for my shoes, which turned out to be just exactly one of the solutions that I needed to deal with that. That was very typical of Senator Enzi. He was thoughtful. He was practical, incredibly hard-working, and very, very smart and very, very principled.

To his family--to his wife Diana, his wife of more than 50 years, and to his children and grandchildren--I want to say how much we will deeply miss him and how much we are sending our thoughts and prayers to them during this very, very difficult time.

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