Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I stand with so many of my colleagues today in a call to action for this body to address a crisis that is at its breaking point for pensioners across our country, retired workers, who have come from the building trades, miners, truck drivers, so many more--actually, hundreds of thousands of Americans--losing their pensions or about to lose them. Millions of American retirees have worked and earned pensions that they contributed to through the multiemployer pension programs. In fact, I met one retiree recently who paid over $225,000 into his plan and has not been able to access one penny--not one penny. Yet hundreds of these plans face serious financial shortfalls, leaving millions of retirees facing an uncertain retirement future. For today, Congress needs to step up and secure the pension benefits these workers have earned. And there should be no pension cuts for workers who contributed to their own plans and should have a right to the money that they invested. Congress can no longer kick the can down the road. There simply is no more time. This problem does not go away if Congress continues to ignore it. Rather, the financial stress mounts for the retirement funds and, of course, for the retirees and for their families so severely impacted. Indeed, the costs the Federal Government will bear if we don't solve this problem now become exponentially more significant as time ensues.…”