Political Quotes

“at the outset, the arguments of my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), need to be emphasized, because before voting on this or any other matter, no matter how worthy, we need to consider the fiscal consequences. I think another way of putting it is that we have to evaluate each of these pieces of legislation, like the one in front of us, to decide whether we think it is so vital to spend that money that we are willing to borrow payroll taxes paid in for Medicare and Social Security and use them for a different purpose. That is a pretty heavy test to meet, and I do not believe this piece of legislation meets it. Let me say, I think there are some very good provisions in the law that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) sponsored last year. That is why I voted for it. I was among the many Members of this body who felt that adding a little money to IRAs and 401(k)s, the portability provisions that let workers take these pensions from one place to another, were sound provisions. They were the highly publicized provisions by which this bill won the support of many people here and in the United States Senate. The less publicized provisions, the fine print of that bill, contain the problems. It allowed more discrimination by the people at the top of pension plans against those at the bottom, the people who need retirement security assistance the most and who have done the least retirement planning.”