Formatting necessary for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g., <DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.
[Page S6821]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SECURE ACT
Mr. LEE. Madam President, as more Americans enjoy longer lives than
ever before, it is more crucial than ever that retirement plans and the
policies that govern them keep pace with healthcare innovation and
demographic change. That is the reason why a bipartisan coalition in
both houses of Congress has proposed the SECURE Act, to modernize
retirement savings policies.
For the first time, it would give businesses the option to band
together to create pooled retirement plans for their employees, helping
them save time and money and expanding access to millions of workers to
an indispensable job benefit. This would especially help small
businesses who would love to offer their employees retirement plans but
simply cannot afford it on their own. It would allow graduate and
postdoctoral students to save for their retirements by contributing
income from their stipends and fellowships to Individual Retirement
Accounts. And it would allow parents to withdraw retirement funds,
without penalty, for the birth or adoption of a child, providing
special help to younger families when they need it most.
I support all of the above provisions, and to see them enacted, I am
willing to accept multiple provisions in this bill that I oppose.
Unfortunately, one provision goes over the line, would hurt the very
workers it purports to help, and would set a dangerous precedent for
Federal policy. This measure would allow a handful of select businesses
to cut their required contributions to their workers' pension plans,
while still promising those workers full benefits.
Under current law, if a pension plan fails to meet its funding
target, the plan sponsor must eliminate the funding shortfall through
additional plan contributions, plus interest, over 7 years. The bailout
in the SECURE Act, however, would extend that period to 30 years for
only a handful of struggling newspapers. Additionally, it would entitle
them to legally assume a higher return on investment than other
businesses must use.
This would reduce the amount that certain community newspapers are
required to contribute to their employees' plans each month and, given
the longer payback window, would also make it less likely that these
bailed out companies would ever make up the shortfall. In other words,
this bill grants a special bailout to a handful of community newspapers
by allowing them to shortchange their workers' pensions.
This is bad policy and bad precedent. This short-sighted strategy
might prolong the life of these community newspapers for a while; that
is what short-sighted strategies do. But it would only do so at the
expense of their employees because, when these newspaper pensions
inevitably become insolvent, which is the trajectory they are already
on, they will most likely end up in the Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation. The PBGC is a federally-chartered business that provides
pension insurance through premiums paid by private companies. In other
words, all the companies required to pay into the PBGC, but that do not
receive a special bailout, will be forced to pay the price. This is the
opposite of ``secure.'' We ought not provide special treatment to a
select group of community newspapers in the first place. And we
certainly shouldn't set the precedent that those bailouts entitle
recipients to raid their workers' pensions and then force more
prudently run businesses to pick up the tab.
This is why I have an amendment that strikes this pension bailout
provision out of the bill. A few weeks ago, Senator Toomey offered a
reasonable path forward for the SECURE Act. He suggested allowing the
Senate to consider the SECURE Act with five Republican amendments and
five Democratic amendments of their choosing. Unfortunately, Senator
Murray refused to accept that proposal, claiming that the amendments
are ``not in the interest of hardworking Americans.''
I respectfully disagree. In addition to my amendment, which would
stop corporate bailouts and protect workers from corporate raids on
their pension funds, Senator Cruz and Senator Braun have amendments to
expand 529 savings accounts. Under their proposals, parents and
grandparents could save money for the educational expenses of children
with disabilities, for homeschooling, and for apprenticeships and
training programs.
All of these amendments are ``in the interests of American workers.''
The Senate should consider each of them. I hope my Democratic
colleagues will recognize the need to put this bill on the Senate floor
so we can vote on the underlying text, as well as the reasonable
amendments that have been proposed.
____________________