-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, it is my distinct opportunity to talk about my good friend Senator Mike Braun from Indiana.
Senator Braun and I came up here at the exact same time. He was 99th in seniority and I was 100th in seniority 6 years ago. We both have very similar backgrounds. Both of us had built businesses. Both of us have very similar backgrounds in how we got started. Neither of us started with any money. We got to build successful businesses. We had to figure out how to control our costs because, you know, you are not going to succeed if you don't figure out how to control your costs. He had a very similar experience as I did on how you control healthcare costs: You make your employees consumers of healthcare. You make them be the ones that make the decision on how they are going to spend healthcare dollars.
He also is very focused on the problems of Federal debt, the problems of Federal spending. From the time he got up here, he was a champion of fiscal sanity.
With our wives, we had the opportunity to travel to Israel--I think our first summer here; I think it was our first summer--and spend a week there just learning everything we could about Israel. Senator Braun has a wonderful family, a wonderful wife--also an entrepreneur like he is. So I am going to miss him a lot.
He talked about the fact that we were so naive when we first came up here. They were supposed to have lunch from 12:30 to 2 o'clock, and the business guys would show up on time, and there were only two of us there. The food wasn't out. So we were told that it doesn't really-- they say it starts on time, but it never did.
We both saw the difficulty in trying to get things accomplished here and the difficulty in trying to control spending here. But his voice has been very important on the fight for fiscal sanity here, and his voice has been very important on the ability to try to figure out how we get our healthcare costs in line so people can afford it--not just government affording it but individuals can afford it.
So I am going to miss him. We both have--we had the worst times together. I think he had the 3 to 6 and I had the 6 to whenever we finished on Thursday. Every Thursday, we were here. So he was very--he was smart. He put it together so that at least every Thursday, one of us could go home a little bit earlier, which was smart.
He did talk to Dan Sullivan, who does a great job with--if you haven't had the opportunity to listen to Dan's Alaskan of the Week, talking about an Alaskan, he does a great job with that. He got him to move it up so we could get out of here earlier.
He is just a great person. We served on the Aging Committee together and the Budget Committee. He is just a wonderful person to serve with.
He is going to love being Governor. I had the opportunity to be Governor from 2011 to 2019. It is a great job. If you care about families, if you want to help people get a job, if you want to help people get a better education, if you want to keep people safe, that is exactly what you get to do.
I think Senator Braun is going to be the best Governor in the country soon. He is going to make sure that Indiana is a State where people can get a great-paying job, their kids get a great education, and people feel safe. It is still a little cold for me. Florida is a little bit warmer than Indiana.
I just want to say I am very appreciative of Mike's friendship. I am very appreciative of his hard work. I appreciate his tenacity.
I can tell you that they are always going to live within their means because Mike will not waste a dime. Indiana will have probably the best budget in the country, and all their debt, if they have any, will be paid off quickly.
I just wanted to say to Mike, thank you for your friendship. I look forward to working with you, and I am going to miss you up here.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source