Lateefah Simon: “let me say that there is one area where I differ with my colleague from New Mexico, and I have great respect for him. I…”

“let me say that there is one area where I differ with my colleague from New Mexico, and I have great respect for him. I think he is one of the finest Members of this body, and his leadership in trying to move us toward a balanced budget I applaud. But I think, outside of the philosophy in the budget where the two sides differ--here you see fundamental differences. How much should go for education? How much for this? But two basic deficiencies are: First, we are having a tax cut when we have not balanced the budget. I just do not think that makes sense at all. Our colleague, Senator Feingold, is going to have an amendment on that. Second, we have to deal with the CPI. Senator Moynihan has been excellent and eloquent on this. Senator Nunn was great. Pete Peterson had the article in the Atlantic Monthly. Anyone who is serious about this question, take a look at Pete Peterson's article. We simply have to balance the budget, and that means we are going to have to address the CPI question sooner than later, and the sooner we do it, the better. It is politically awkward. There is no question about that. I have to say, the other side of this, without having studied where we are going, to say that we want to divert 2 percent of the total tax payroll to a private investment plan without doing any studying on it and without having hearings on it, I think is a questionable procedure. I really have qualms about doing something like that.”