Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my good friend from Massachusetts' concern about his amendment that would seek to eliminate the ability of, frankly, some of the best advisers, some of the most successful companies in America, from offering investment advice to their employees. The fact is today we have some 50 million Americans who have self-directed investment accounts as part of their pension and retirement package from their employer. Only about 16 percent of these people have any access to professional investment advice. One of the things we have all seen with the collapse of the high-tech sector, with the Enron collapse, and about the dramatic fall in the value of a number of stocks that we have seen over the last several years, those employees today need more investment advice to help them make better decisions for their own retirement security. The two provisions in the underlying bill today, the Investment Advice Act that this House passed with all the Republicans and 64 Democrats last November is one of those provisions, and the provision from the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) in the Committee on Ways and Means' section of the bill that would provide a tax credit, the ability to use pre-tax dollars to have their own investment, I think complement each other to the point where we will have much more investment advice out in the marketplace.”