Lateefah Simon

Just for 1 minute. I thank my colleague, and if this passes, if the balanced budget amendment passes--and I believe it will--then I think we have to at that point let State and local governments know, let everyone know what kind of a…

One of the best things that has happened in the U.S. Senate since I have been here is the election of Paul Wellstone to the U.S. Senate. I differ with him on this for two basic reasons. No 1, the argument that is made against the balanced…

I feel that any country capable of making a real contribution to the activities of the United Nations should have the opportunity to do so as a full member of that organization. For that reason, it is all the more unfortunate that a…

Twenty-three percent of the children of this Nation live in poverty. No other industrial nation has anything like that figure; no 23 percent in Great Britain or Canada or France or Germany or Italy or Japan or Norway or Denmark or Sweden…

I wish to commend him for his statement, and I simply want the officers of that corporation to know this vote today was just the first salvo. This is not the end of the road. The Senator is talking about when the Japanese Prime Minister is…

this is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution regarding a strike situation that we face in this country. Bridgestone/ Firestone is a company wholly owned by a Japanese corporation. They bought Firestone, merged the two companies. They have had…

I would have objection to the language offered by Senator Byrd. Senator Byrd and I differ on this, and Senator Byrd is obviously trying to put some language in here where we will end up fighting over how we balance the budget rather than…

If I could just ask one other question on the amendment, because I basically like the thrust of the Senator's amendment. Suppose that a year from now or 2 years from now or 3 years from now, we come in with a health program for the Nation…

Yes, that is correct. And I agree with that completely. Whatever we do in the way of spending we have to have the revenue for it. I just want to make sure that we are not locking out some other possibility.

Absolutely. In terms of cluttering up this bill, as the Senator from Kansas indicated, if she will indicate to me that she will be happy to support this legislation if we introduce it independently and not on this bill, I will be happy to…

on July 12, of last year, 4,200 members of the United Rubber Workers went on strike at Bridgestone/Firestone. The plants are in Decatur, IL; Des Moines, IA; Oklahoma City; Akron, OH; and Noblesville, IN. Negotiations had been going on for…

let me say in response to my colleague from Kansas, that we are not passing the law on striker replacement. This is simply a sense of the Senate stating they ought to sit down and work these things out. We do have traditions of not hiring…

The Senator from Iowa is absolutely correct. It is interesting that the former chief executive of the American operation received awards for his labor-management relations and the improvement of productivity that took place. Now, all of a…

Senator Moseley-Braun, Senator D'Amato, and I are submitting this amendment on military arsenals because we question the permissiveness of the language in section 3051 of S. 1587. While we understand the Section 800 Panel looked at the…

Yes. We receive about $5 for each $1 that is spent. Obviously, you get to a point of diminishing returns. So if we were to make 10 times this amount, we would not pull in $5 for every $1. But the IRS believes this is a sensible move, and…

Mr. President, if you take a look at that interest that the Senator has already pointed out has grown from 6 to 14 percent, GAO says by the year 2020 that is going to grow to 37 percent. You can imagine the squeeze on defense spending. And…

I respond in two ways. First, no nation has gone into where we are projected to go.

Every one of those bright young men on that team will not be protected by this Reid amendment, because of the deficit situation. We cannot adopt a constitutional amendment that anticipates we are going to have a surplus into the indefinite…

As the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, is it not true that it is impossible to be strong militarily if you are weak economically?

The reality is particularly if we fail with three-fifths to extend the debt ceiling, those estimates are going to be very, very tight. Then on the recession, is the Senator from North Dakota aware that since 1962 we passed 11 economic…

No. What I am saying is, we provide that estimates can be used. But we also provide that revenue has to match outlays, which the one of the Senator from Nevada does not provide; and, second, we provide that if you want to increase the…

The Reid amendment relies on estimates infinitely more than our amendment, because we have the discipline, the teeth, of saying if you want to raise the debt, you have to have a three-fifths vote.

But to do it in terms of a constitutional amendment, I believe, is unwise for several reasons; one of them being the reality that starting in the year 2024 Social Security is not running a surplus, but a deficit. That means that anyone 35…

Two questions. One is those estimates that the Senator has, is it not true where they are way off, those are multiyear estimates?

Is the Senator from North Dakota aware of the statement by Bob Myers, the actuary for 23 years for the Social Security system, that says the balanced budget amendment that I have introduced is the only protection that the Social Security…