[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11057]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           PROTECTING AMERICANS AND THEIR LOCAL BANK ACCOUNTS

  (Ms. EDWARDS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. EDWARDS. Madam Speaker, on my way home from work, I stopped at 
the local grocery store, and I stopped at the bank. My bank is located 
conveniently between my grocery store and the gas station, only minutes 
from my home.
  I thought about the last 4 years and the fights that Democrats in 
Congress are waging to make sure working families can see more money in 
their bank accounts. It's been tough, but we've had some successes: 
reducing out-of-pocket health care expenses with preventive care, 
closing the prescription drug doughnut hole, protecting consumers from 
overdraft and ATM fees, even getting the American auto industry back on 
track as a mainstay of American manufacturing.
  But we have some important fights ahead us. We are fighting to keep 
in place critical middle class tax cuts. We know Americans can't afford 
those tax hikes. We know American seniors can't afford the drastic cuts 
in Medicare in the Republican Tea Party budget.
  Democrats are focused on growing the economy, creating jobs, and 
ensuring that Americans see more money in our neighborhood bank 
accounts--not on some other shore, not in some other country, and not 
on some island. Republicans say they worry about the same things, but 
today they're repealing health care and protecting the interests of 
millionaires because they care more about those folks than they do 
about hardworking Americans and their local bank accounts.

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