On the recordJanuary 6, 2011
You make me embarrassed right here. I wish I could take full credit for the time management plans that we are implementing here. I may have said it, but somebody else had to make the decision to go forward with it. I think it was the right thing to do because it requires us, instead of running around in circles like a bunch of squirrels on a treadmill or chipmunks on a treadmill wasting a lot of time, we try to focus our energies so that when we are on the floor it makes some kind of difference. Let me just give one other historical example of what I think we need to be doing and dedicate ourselves, since I have been throwing out too many already. I believe it was in the first Congress that the issue came up of postal roads, where to draw the line, where would the postal roads for the new Post Office go. There is some kind of economic benefit of having actually mail dropped along a route. But Congress, eager to get out, said let's just allow the President, the executive branch, to decide where the postal routes will be, which seems to be a logical thing to do. And I believe it was Congressman Paige, I hope from Virginia, who stood up and said, no, our job of Congress is to legislate, which includes taking the time to agree on where those postal routes will go. It is not our responsibility to give it to an executive branch or a bureaucracy or some other group to come up with all the details. And he forced Congress to stay there, and they did their job.
