Lateefah Simon: “let me say first that I agree with three-fourths of what my colleague from North Dakota has just said. First, I think it…”

“let me say first that I agree with three-fourths of what my colleague from North Dakota has just said. First, I think it makes absolutely no sense to be talking about a tax cut now. I think it is just absolutely irrational. It politically makes sense but it does not make sense any other way. And so I agree with him. Let me point out one other area where we can save money and do a great deal of good for the people in our country. That is if we pass a minimum wage bill. If we pass a minimum wage bill, we will spend less money on food stamps; we will spend less money on welfare. That is very practical. I do not know the precise numbers, but I saw one figure yesterday that we will save approximately $1.8 billion a year if we pass a minimum wage bill, in terms of a Federal budget. I do not know how thoroughly documented that is. Where I differ slightly from my colleague from North Dakota--I agree with him that we ought to be moving away from reliance on the Social Security trust fund in balancing the budget, and we came very close to an agreement on that--where I do differ is that it seems to me that the Krauthammer column is correct in saying the great threat to Social Security is the debt.”