John Bel Edwards: “there is something ironic when we have 17,000 soldiers from my district in Fort Hood, Texas, fighting for democracy in…”

“there is something ironic when we have 17,000 soldiers from my district in Fort Hood, Texas, fighting for democracy in Iraq, yet right here on the floor of the House with this bill the House leadership is denying democracy in the people's House of Representatives in America. Basically, what is happening is that we are being denied, 435 Members are being denied the right to even vote on an amendment to this bill. Regardless of the substance of amendments, that is wrong. We cannot be preaching democracy in Iraq and fighting for it there while denying democracy here in America. Secondly, for this bill to be called the Social Security Protection Act, I think it needs a large asterisk, Mr. Speaker, because the same people pushing this legislation are the ones who are the architects of the largest fiscal deficit disaster in American history. The greatest threat to the solvency of Social Security, its trust fund and benefits for seniors is the massive $7 trillion national debt that is stealing money away from the Social Security Trust Fund, money that should be saved to provide benefits for Social Security recipients.”