Rich Neal: “This honest disagreement I think crystallizes along the lines of who is to benefit from this legislation. Once again, on…”

“This honest disagreement I think crystallizes along the lines of who is to benefit from this legislation. Once again, on the Democratic side, we argue, I think with considerable merit, that the legislation in front of us does not do enough to help middle-income Americans or low-income wage earners. The substitute that we will discuss later on today offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) is, I believe, the only way that we can bring a balanced pension package to the President that he will sign this year. The substitute that we will offer later on will add a dimension that the underlying bill lacks and which it badly needs. One of the key criticisms of the bill before us is that the benefit increases go only to those lucky few who make a maximum contribution under current law. The retirement savings account proposal takes a good first step at addressing this lack of balance. It gives a refundable tax credit to low- and moderate-income workers who participate in an employer-sponsored pension plan or an individual retirement account.”