Dan Coats: “I am pleased to introduce for Independence Act, bipartisan legislation designed to help poor and working-poor Americans…”

“I am pleased to introduce for Independence Act, bipartisan legislation designed to help poor and working-poor Americans build the productive assets they need to get out of poverty and invest in their future. Just as people can't borrow their way out of debt, they can't spend their way out of poverty. To move forward, America's struggling families need assets. For assets are 'hope in concrete form.' While our Nation has wisely recognized this fact for our middle- and upper-income families by subsidizing, through the Tax Code, the acquisition of homes and retirement accounts, we have not extended these very sensible policies to our lower-income citizens. In fact, they are often penalized if they try to save. My legislation will change that, and set them on a path to economic independence. And, by increasing our national savings rate, it will help set America on a path to greater productivity and prosperity. I truly believe that IDA's can be to the 21st century what the Homestead Act was to the 19th and what the GI Bill was to the 20th--an investment in the common genius of the American people. The truth, Mr. President, is that we have spent billions on the poor, but we have rarely invested in them. And I say emphatically that IDA's are not a give-away--they are an investment.”