Date: 2004-04-21
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. just a few minutes ago before the House finished its legislative business. we passed legislation that would allow National Guard members and Reserve members to take money out of their IRA accounts aid not have a penalty on those individuals. When they do that under current law. if you invade your retirement account. you pay a penalty if you do that because we are trying to encourage people to keep their savings intact so they can build a retirement fund. It is outrageous that the best we can do for these National Guard and Reserve families that are under incredible economic strain because members of their family are serving longer tours in Iraq than they had planned to. that those who are scheduled to get out of the Reserves in the Army cannot get out because of the stop order. So those people have been without those incomes for many months now. they have not been able to meet the obligations of their families. Their home mortgages are threatened. Their car payments are threatened. Loan payments are threatened. And we are telling them that. they must invade their retirement savings in order to continue to subsidize the war in Iraq. It is unbelievable that we would do this. So the Reserves and the National Guard members from my area. from the San Francisco Bay area. are being told that after we invaded Iraq they must invade their savings because we need them to continue to serve in Iraq. So the penalty they pay is that they are going to lose their retirement benefits down the road. Many of those people in the Reserves. many of these people in the National Guard do not have the kind of incomes that will let them then replace the 5. 10. 15. $20.000 that they wanted to borrow from their IRAs. So for the sacrifice they have made to defend this country in Iraq. they have to lose retirement benefits in the future years. It is unbelievable that we would think that this is an answer to their problem. This government could extend them interestfree loans. This government could give them additional pay if they are kept in the service beyond their contract date. If they are kept in Iraq beyond the original time frame. we could provide them additional pay. At the same time we are giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in this country. we are asking our service people who are in harms way. who are getting killed. who are getting maimed. who are getting injured in so many ways that they have to invade their savings so that they can keep their families together while they are protecting. this country. I cannot believe that that is the re� sponse of the Republican Party in this Congress. that that is the benefit that we are going to provide these families and these soldiers who are making this sacrifice on our behalf. Now. mind you. all of the advice that these soldiers had when they started their IRA accounts from their employment. from Goldman Sachs. from Merrill Lynch. from Charles Schwab is do not ever touch your retirement savings because the sooner you start and the longer you do it. the better chance you have at retirement where you will be secure. But because. unfortunately. they have joined the armed services or because. unfortunately. they cannot get out of the armed services because of the war on Iraq or because they have been sent to Iraq to fight the war for longer than they have anticipated or they were told was going to happen. they must now take their savings and try to support their families with that. I cannot believe that is what a grateful Nation would do to these individuals. but that is the bill that just passed. We all voted for it. We want to do whatever we can to help them. but that cannot be the response of this Nation to these military families that find themselves in this kind of. economic stress. How cynical of an approach that somehow we cannot help these families out beyond saying they will not have to pay the penalty for destroying their savings. Well. the minute they touch those savings. they are being penalized because they are giving up retirement benefits in the future. This Congress owes our National Guard members. our Reserve members better than that. and we owe their families better than that. And we ought to correct this and correct it immediately because these families. the financial stress is continuing because of this war on Iraq. And we ought not to have them go into financial ruin because they have defended this country. because they have served this country. because they answered the call of this President.