On the recordMarch 30, 2011
I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity of being here, and I also appreciate being here with my good friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings), who is one of the true delights with whom I have such an opportunity to work here in Washington. I guess, if he is saying that we have the group du jour from whom we are presenting bills, today's group du jour would be those who are financially disadvantaged and still want a better opportunity for education. As I said, there would be four issues that would be discussed. We can check off three of the four already. Only the concept of ``liberty'' has yet to be addressed here. Some of them may be non sequiturs, but they were still there nonetheless. I guess the last statistic that still can be put out there as to whether this program works or not deals with the parents who, when the free market of ideas was opened up to them, they chose this program. They wanted this program. They wanted to maintain this program, and they will flock back to it. Since my good friend Mr. Hastings also used a baseball reference to tie me, I have to one-up him one more time. In the words of the great Satchel Paige, who was consulting a struggling pitcher who was failing to get it over on the corners, he just said, Throw the pitch. Just throw strikes. Home plate don't move. This program is one of those strikes. All we need to do is throw it. Home plate don't move. I reserve the balance of my time.
