Lateefah Simon: “Yes. I would like to respond to my friend from Arkansas. First of all, I believe that Government can do very good…”

“Yes. I would like to respond to my friend from Arkansas. First of all, I believe that Government can do very good things. I believe it more than my friend from Utah does. I am for a WPA program right now. I put in the Record yesterday an article by a distinguished economist, as well as a couple of other things by other economists, saying that the evidence now is that because of the heavy debt we have, we simply are not responding. You can remember when the President of the United States, when he first came in, asked us for $15 billion for a jobs program, but because of the deficit, we could not do it. Fred Bertston, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, whom you know, has said, if you had asked him 10 years ago would he be for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, he would have said absolutely not. He says, "Now I think it is essential." The only way he says you are going to have a response to recessions that is adequate is to build up about a 2-percent surplus, give the President the authority to respond with certain specific programs when unemployment goes above a certain level in various States. I would say, finally, to my friend from Arkansas, where we have responded is in the extension of unemployment compensation. I went back over several decades when we have extended unemployment compensation. I could find only one time--in 1982--when we did not have more than 60 votes to respond to that.”