Vito Fossella: “I think, as has been said many times today, this bill is long overdue and it is a tremendous benefit for the American…”

“I think, as has been said many times today, this bill is long overdue and it is a tremendous benefit for the American people. Essentially what it does and if you ask any American, I know if you ask anybody back home in Staten Island or Brooklyn, if they are given the opportunity to set a little more money aside for their retirement, will they take advantage of it? This bill does that. This bill for the first time in years says to that hardworking individual or two, you can take a little more money and save it for your golden years. Is that not what we should be trying to do? Should we not be empowering Americans to say that they should have the freedom to spend a little more money for their own retirement as they see fit? We all know that different families have different needs, young, old. But we also should have a fundamental agreement that when Americans, when individuals are given the freedom to invest and to save on their own, we are doing not only them a service but we are doing the entire Nation a service. On Staten Island, for example, we have a lot of police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, a lot of civil servants, city workers. Right now, if they decide to change careers, which is their right, they cannot roll over their contributions into another retirement plan, a 401(k) or an IRA. This bill solves that problem, giving them more freedom and more flexibility.”