Cord Byrd: “I congratulate the Chair on upholding the rules of the Senate. Let them laugh. I am laughing, too. If these executives…”

“I congratulate the Chair on upholding the rules of the Senate. Let them laugh. I am laughing, too. If these executives are looking for new ideas for television reality shows, may I suggest a few. We could take highly paid, well-groomed television network executives and relocate them to the sticks, where they'd have to try to find a job with health care and pension benefits and enough pay to support a family, and adjust to everyday life in rural America. Now that would be funny! And, as the president of the UMWA, Cecil Roberts, has suggested, we could put them to work digging coal from a 30-inch seam in a non-union coal mine. That too would be funny! I could suggest a program where Americans could watch television anchormen trying to get to work on time each day while driving on hilly, winding two-lane roads behind huge coal trucks going 5 miles an hour up steep hills. We would watch their frustration build and build and could take bets on when they would blow their tempers. We could watch them get their $2,500 made-to-measure suits dirty as they are forced to change tires flattened by huge potholes created by those coal trucks. We could watch them pull their cars into garages and get the estimates for repairs to the damage those potholes have done. Then we could laugh hysterically as they present 'fleecing of America' awards to Senators who try to get those highways improved.”