John Tierney: “I would like to add my words in agreement with the gentleman from Minnesota, that this is not a partisan motion in any…”

“I would like to add my words in agreement with the gentleman from Minnesota, that this is not a partisan motion in any sense of the word. This is something that Members of Congress, I think, can get behind and clearly feel comfortable that they are just serving the interests of their constituencies. This particular motion does take the language from Senator Grassley, on the other side of the House, that puts it into the bill that it would prohibit the wearing away, the practice by which some employers have discriminated against older workers when they offset the benefits that were already earned against their ability to earn new benefits under these new cash benefit plans. They can result in no new benefits being added, actually, for workers' pensions for up to 10 years. And they provide for a fair transition for rules to protect workers' pensions when they do convert the traditional pensions to those so called cash balance pension plans. We critically need this. You only need to talk to the people in your districts, my colleagues, and you will find a growing sense of insecurity in this country as corporations back off their responsibilities for health insurance, back off their responsibilities for retirement plans, and now come up with a cash balance plan which is supposed to be a plan melding two different types of retirement programs and ends up hurting some. One of my constituents talked about having worked for AT&T for 30 years.…”