Lateefah Simon: “I am for this amendment for two reasons: One is it reduces the deficit. Some of us on this floor right now are members…”

“I am for this amendment for two reasons: One is it reduces the deficit. Some of us on this floor right now are members of the Budget Committee. Let me tell you without a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget the 7 years that both sides are talking about will not result in a balanced budget. We put all the tough decisions off to the end. Not all of them but most of them. So we are not going to achieve a balanced budget without a constitutional amendment, and this at least moves in the direction of reducing the deficit. Second, I am for it because the budget as it is constituted has an imbalance. What the Grassley amendment does is gives the Defense Department $3 billion more than they requested. Frankly, if I were to put the budget together--for example, in yesterday's New York Times is a story, 'U.N. Says North Korea Will Face Famine as Early as This Summer.' And in today's Washington Post it says 'No Help Set for N. Korea.' I do not think that we ought to be using hunger as a political tool.”