Mike Enzi: “I come to the floor to discuss legislation approved by the House of Representatives that would leave taxpayers holding…”

“I come to the floor to discuss legislation approved by the House of Representatives that would leave taxpayers holding the fiscal bag for a specific category of underfunded private pension plans. Throughout most of my professional life, from my days as an accountant, to my service as the mayor of Gillette, WY, and in the Wyoming Legislature, to my membership on the Senate's Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and then on the Committee on Finance, I have worked on pension policy. This experience has taught me many things about retirement security and the need for sound planning. My concern with the House-passed bill is not just with its immediate cost to the taxpayers but also with what it would mean down the road. The bill would send the signal to private pension plans that regardless of how underfunded they are or how risky their investments, the taxpayers will be there to bail them out. Pensions are an important source of retirement income for millions of Americans, but many of the private sector's multiemployer pension plans are seriously underfunded. These are plans that are sponsored by a group of private employers as part of collective bargaining agreements with their employees and are separate from the single employers' plans, which are generally better funded. According to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, multiemployers' pension plans are underfunded by more than $637 billion. That is $637 billion that is underfunded.…”