[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 11530]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      TRIBUTE TO AUSTIN T. SMYTHE

 Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to join the Chairman of the 
Budget Committee, Senator Pete Domenici, in recognizing Mr. Austin 
Smythe's service to the United States Senate. At the end of this week, 
Austin will join the private sector after 15 years as a key staff 
member of the Senate Budget Committee.
  As a member of the Senate Budget Committee over the past 5 years, my 
staff and I have had the pleasure of working with Austin on a variety 
of budget-related issues. He has been extremely helpful to this 
Senator, offering his invaluable advice and expertise in the drafting 
of several bills and amendments that I have sponsored or cosponsored, 
most recently the Mandates Information Act and the Social Security 
Preservation and Debt Reduction Act. As Senator Domenici said in his 
statement, Austin is ``a Senator's dream staffer''--extremely 
knowledgeable, hard-working, dedicated, and able to distill complex 
topics in terms even Senators can understand.
  We will miss Austin Smythe's contribution to the U.S. Senate and to 
the Nation and wish him success in his new endeavors.

                          ____________________