Political Quotes

“My friend, Mr. Roskam, said you can't make things up. Well, unfortunately, people are. First and foremost, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are conflating accounts that are in the name of individual savers who don't have pensions that would be set up under these proposals, with what has happened with State and local pension plans and, frankly, private pension plans that got over their skis, that overpromised, that added to things. These are just the accounts that belong to individuals. Now, the hypocrisy strikes me that my Republican friends want to strip away the protections of the Affordable Care Act and turn it back to the States. Let them do with it what they will for Medicaid, for other local health programs. They think that is a great idea. But when governments on the State level like mine spent years developing a proposal that is innovative, that would protect people, that would involve no public tax dollars but at least engage people in a low-cost, transparent savings plan like we all have as Federal employees, then they don't want innovation, then they don't trust the States, then they want extra regulation that was never designed for programs like this. I find it troubling that we would take a low-cost, high-impact program that has been developed in a number of States to help savers who have no program, that the private sector doesn't think they are important enough to invest in--or it is not worth their while--and strip that away.…”