John Hope Bryant: “today we will take up the balanced budget amendment and I am one Democrat who supports an amendment. But I support an…”

“today we will take up the balanced budget amendment and I am one Democrat who supports an amendment. But I support an amendment that protects Social Security. There is no reason why we cannot pass a balanced budget amendment that still maintains the guarantee to senior citizens that Social Security will not be touched. We have heard some of these Republicans raise questions about why we are talking about Social Security. I will tell Members why. It is because you fellows elected a Speaker of the House who has called for abolishing Social Security. The Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, in 1986 called for abolishing Social Security and turning it into some kind of a mandatory IRA program, and I am quoting from the Atlanta Constitution, November 1986. Also because you Republicans elected a majority leader, Dick Armey, who did the same thing. He cosponsored a special provision for a mandatory retirement account that was supposed to substitute for Social Security. He also spoke out a few years ago about the fact that we never should have started Social Security in the first place. Senior citizens have a good reason to be afraid of what Republicans are going to do to Social Security. Today when we vote for an amendment to balance the budget, we ought to vote for a provision to protect Social Security.”