Congratulating Senator Rounds

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I, too, wish to congratulate my colleague from South Dakota, Senator Rounds, because he has already been a great leader on this subject. As a successful two-term Governor, a leader in our State legislature, he was a practical, commonsense, down-to-earth Governor who just liked to get things done.

I think coming here to Washington, DC, and finding the massive bureaucracy--in some cases, dysfunction--that surrounds this city, there can be a lot of disillusionment at times for people across the country. I think the new Senator from South Dakota is going to be a great voice, a clear voice on solutions for how to break through that. He will be a great partner and someone I look forward to continuing to work with. We worked together a lot during his time as Governor and while in the State legislature, but I am delighted he is here in the Senate, where he can take his skills and experience and the passion he has to bring about positive change for our country and put it to work on behalf of the people of South Dakota and the people of our country.

I look forward to working with him on the very issue he talked about today because there is probably nothing right now that has a greater economic impact and creates more economic harm for the people we represent in South Dakota than regulatory overreach. This is evidenced on an almost daily basis as new regulations emanate from various agencies around this town that make it more difficult and more expensive for people to create jobs, more difficult for farmers and ranchers and small business people to do the things they do best, and just create a higher burden, a higher level of harm for people across the State because everything that comes out of Washington, DC, that drives up the cost of doing business in this country gets passed on to consumers in our State and all across the country.

I congratulate the Senator from South Dakota on his remarks and am grateful for his great service to our State in so many ways already and now adding to that here as a Member of the Senate, where we have big problems, big challenges, but he meets that with not only big enthusiasm but big experience when it comes to knocking down these barriers and making it more possible for people in this country to live more prosperous lives, safer lives, and hopefully more fulfilled lives when they can get government out of the way and allow their greatest aspirations to surface.

So I hope we have the opportunity to deal with a lot of those issues and do it in a way that creates greater prosperity for people across South Dakota and across this country.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source