Orrin Hatch: “I rise to speak about the pension reform legislation I am introducing today. I am taking this step for a simple reason…”

“I rise to speak about the pension reform legislation I am introducing today. I am taking this step for a simple reason: America cannot continue sleepwalking into the financial disaster that awaits us if we do not get the public pension debt crisis under control. The bill I introduce today is called The Secure Annuities for Employee Retirement Act of 2013--the SAFE Retirement Act, for short. In addition to public pension underfunding, the SAFE Retirement Act addresses two other critically important aspects of retirement policy: 401(k) plan coverage and access to professional investment advice for workers and retirees. I will briefly address each part in turn. I have been working on the public pension underfunding problem, which I call the pension debt crisis, for some time. Two years ago, I stood before this Senate and described the financial challenge public pension plans pose to Americans. I described how the gap between the pensions that have been promised to workers by State and local governments and the money set aside was as much as $4.4 trillion short by some estimates, more than the total amount of municipal bond debt nationwide. I explained that the problem of public pension underfunding existed before the 2008 recession and any attempt to lay blame for the problem at the feet of Wall Street or big business or some other group was just blame shifting.…”