Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this bill is borne out of the work Senator Collins and I did on the Special Committee on Aging. After we had a hearing on the condition of the American senior citizen, it was certainly clear that something had to be done to give them better access to retirement plans. A lot of the situation that Senator Collins has just described is so true. Fewer than half of workers have access to any retirement plan at work, and those numbers are even constricted when you start talking about employees who work for smaller business. Only one quarter of small businesses with less than 100 employees offers any type of retirement plan for their employees. The lack of a retirement plan at work means when an individual gets to be a senior citizen they are going to end up relying on Social Security, where we are talking about a benefit of maybe $1,300 a month, or $15,000 a year. That is simply not enough to pay for housing and medical care and other expenses. In my State of Florida, one-third of the senior citizens rely on Social Security income to get by in retirement. We have to fix this problem. There are too many people who work too hard throughout their lives and get to be in those golden years, and then they are faced with a real crisis. So the legislation the two of us have worked on for well over a year will offer retirement plans by encouraging small businesses to set up those retirement plans.…”