On the recordMarch 21, 2013
I rise today as the senior Senate Republican of the Joint Economic Committee to discuss one of the most fundamental issues this body confronts on a year-to-year basis, or at least should confront on a year-to-year basis, which is passing a budget through which we could operate the rest of the year and measure how we spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Unfortunately, we haven't had one of these budgets for 4 years. I am pleased we finally have arrived at this particular point. I will speak about that in more detail. A few years back when I was serving as Ambassador to Germany, I made calls on the various ministers. They would be equivalent to cabinet secretaries in our country. I would always try to get a little background information on them before I went to see if we had anything in common, or an ice breaker to start the conversation. I was calling on one of the ministers and noticed, reading his background first, his birth date was the same as mine. It was a milestone birthday. We were both born in 1943. At the time, the date of my seeing him was just a couple of months after we both celebrated our 60th birthday. To break the ice, I said to him: Mr. Minister, we have something in common. He said: What is that? I said: We both were born on the same day. Therefore, we both reached a very important milestone in life. He looked at me seriously and said: And how are you doing with all of this? I said: Well, I am doing fine.…
