Lateefah Simon: “This is the lead story. The headline says: ``A Balanced Budget Myth Bared,'' in which the article talks about the fact…”

“This is the lead story. The headline says: ``A Balanced Budget Myth Bared,'' in which the article talks about the fact that, in fact, we just do not act promptly enough to move in a recession, so to stop the balanced budget on that basis just does not make any sense. The article quotes James Bennett, an economist at George Mason University: If anything, I think the government has made economic cycles worse. I hear this: What about floods, earthquakes? We have an emergency in Michigan or Missouri, or someplace, and we have had them in Missouri and Illinois recently in our floods. First of all, I will say that I favor creating a special emergency fund. We should not create a deficit every time. We ought to create an emergency fund of $5 or $10 billion every year, where we can tap into that for emergencies that will occur almost every year. Take a look at the votes on these things. They say, well, we will be prevented from helping in natural calamities. Starting in 1991, I have not been able to find a single time when, in an emergency, we declined helping people.”