On the recordApril 1, 2011
I yield myself an additional minute. But if you ask my daughter's eighth grade class that visited us here earlier this week, they will tell you that that's not how things work under our Constitution. But don't listen to me or the eighth graders at Dent Middle School. Listen to what some of your colleagues in the other body had to say. So our colleagues in the other body had made it very clear. Senator Coats of Indiana: ``My reaction to that is ultimately the whole body, including the executive branch, has to sign on here or we're just whistling in the wind.'' Senator Alexander of Tennessee: ``To be the law of the land, a bill has to pass the Senate and be signed by the President.'' One of our own, the Appropriations Subcommittee Chair, Representative Mike Simpson, after laughing out loud, said, ``If we can do that, can't we just deem the budget balanced?'' Madam Speaker, I know it's April 1, so maybe that's the point. I ask my colleagues on the other side to let's quit this joke and get serious.
