Political Quotes

“The security of retirement programs of America's workers is about as important a thing as I think we are going to tackle. It has been my pleasure to work with people on both sides of the aisle on this issue for many years. I want to commend, in particular, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) for the substantive and serious-minded work he has put into this topic. He is truly one of the experts in the Congress, House and Senate, on this issue; and his leadership has been important. Let us look at where we are today. Only half the people in the workforce today have access to workplace retirement savings. We have absolutely a collapse in the number of defined benefit plans providing reliable pensions to workers. The plans are not collapsing; they are converting to defined contribution plans, a different arrangement, in my opinion, over the long run, one not likely to serve the worker quite as well. We have 401(k) choices, a bewildering array, facing workers, without having provided them sufficient information to best steer their interests in light of their new responsibilities. And, obviously, as the Enron case has so sadly shown, we have insufficient protections that protect workers from the kind of abuse that occurred by an employer acting in what, I believe, will be very actionable ways in the Enron circumstance.”