Dennis Kucinich: “this is a bad rule and this is a bad bill. Today the bulk of the Nation's pension plans have less than 100 participants…”

“this is a bad rule and this is a bad bill. Today the bulk of the Nation's pension plans have less than 100 participants, and a gap in ERISA enforcement and in ERISA law leaves these workers' retirement savings at grave risk. Yet H.R. 1000 does nothing to correct this problem, and the majority refused to even consider a common-sense amendment I offered to protect workers' pensions through the most basic of means, simply by ensuring that plan fiduciaries actually file their forms. Eclipsed by the high-profile pension scandals at large corporations such as Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing, thousands of other employees around the country have been no less harmed by gross fiduciary malfeasance at smaller, less notable companies. In my own district a group of 19 employees saw their retirement funds vanish as their employer, Lakewood Manufacturing Company, repeatedly dismissed employee requests for the release of plan documents, and ultimately closed, having lost over $2 million in pension funds, the entire pension plan. Later investigation revealed that over a period of 3 years, the plan's fiduciary, also the owner of the company, used funds from the employee pension plan to make dangerous and poorly diversified investments in companies for which he had a personal stake, such as the Psychic Discovery Network, now bankrupt.”