John Delaney: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we have a looming retirement crisis in this country. People are living…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we have a looming retirement crisis in this country. People are living longer, the cost of retirement is greater than it has ever been, Americans haven't been able to save for retirement because wages have not gone up, and across the last several decades we have shifted the risk of retirement from institutions to individuals. In that context, the notion that we would allow, perhaps, upwards of 20 percent of hardworking Americans' savings to be eroded because of conflicted investment advice is preposterous. It is for that reason I am a strong supporter of the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule and stand here in opposition, against any efforts to undermine it. The notion that average Americans, low-income Americans, and middle class Americans won't receive service in the context of this new rule is also invalid. One of the greatest expenses financial institutions have is customer acquisition, in other words, the amount of money they invest to acquire customers. The idea that they would somehow get rid of millions and millions of customers that they have already invested huge amounts of money in acquiring I find to be not only a bad business decision, but not logical in the context of the private market, the way we understand it.…”