Nancy L. Johnson: “I thank the chairman; and I want to congratulate my colleagues, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) and the gentleman…”

“I thank the chairman; and I want to congratulate my colleagues, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), who have long been leaders on complicated pension issues, and to the whole conference committee for bringing a bill back that we can get to the President's desk to sign because there is literally nothing more important to working Americans than retirement security. They have the right to know. We have the obligation to assure them that, when they retire, their retirement plans will come to reality and they will receive the benefits that they have long counted on. When the rate on the 30-year Treasury bond plummeted after the bonds were discontinued, companies found themselves forced to make artificially high contributions to defined benefit pension plans. That is all this does. This just eliminates that requirement for companies with defined benefit pension plans, which we all know are extremely valuable to working people. It protects those companies from having to make artificially high contributions. With the economy just coming back, this is about as important a jobs bill as we could pass right now because if we do not give these companies relief, they will be forced to divert funds from paying for current employees or hiring new employees because they will have to make sizeable, significant, new, higher contributions to their pension funds.”