Roy Blunt: “when I gave my first speech on the Senate floor 12 years ago or when I cast my first vote in the House 26 years ago, I…”

“when I gave my first speech on the Senate floor 12 years ago or when I cast my first vote in the House 26 years ago, I had really no way to anticipate the challenges and opportunities that were ahead of us. I come to the floor today grateful for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the Capitol. When we agree and when we don't, we are bound by the Constitution to seek a more perfect Union. Of course, I am most grateful to Missourians, who have given me the chance to work with them as a county official, as the Missouri Secretary of State, and in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. Missouri is where the country comes together--the North meets the South, the East meets the West. No State has more States at its borders than us and only one with as many States as we have. We have been the population center of America for the last five decades in kind of moving down Interstate 44 as the population has moved west and south. We sit in the middle of the biggest piece of contiguous agricultural farmland in the world, and it is the only one that has its own built-in transportation system--the Mississippi River Valley. St. Louis is sometimes described as the westernmost eastern city, and Kansas City, really, may be more like Denver and Omaha than it is St. Louis. Springfield, where I live, kind of looks to the west and the south to Tulsa and to Fayetteville.…”