Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague from Maryland for his partnership on this over the years. Let me just make the obvious point for those who are watching today. I am a Republican, and he is a Democrat. We are actually talking about doing legislation together. It is bipartisan. I would say, in the retirement space, we have tried to keep it nonpartisan because this is so important to the people we represent. The committee also happens to be represented by a Republican and a Democrat who believe in this. Senator Grassley was the chairman of the committee back in 2001 when we first passed this major legislation to increase what people could save for their retirement. He is the chairman again, and he believes in this. Senator Wyden is the ranking Democrat, the top Democrat. He also was a former Gray Panthers executive director and also has a provision in our bill that is very important, as Senator Cardin talked about, with regard to student loan debt. The constellations are kind of properly aligned. I think the ability for us to get this done might be counter to a lot of the partisanship and the gridlock we see here in this town. This is bipartisan stuff. It always has been. We have spent our time, have done it right, and have used input from all sorts of outside stakeholders. We have the opportunity here to improve our national savings, which everyone says is important, including the Congressional Budget Office, and to help people have peace of mind in retirement.…”