Date: 2005-11-08
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. milliois of Americans are worried sick about their retirement nest eggs. and they are demanding decisive action by Congress. In just the last 2 weeks. two national publications have featured cover stories on the peril Americas workers and retirees are facing.On October 31 of this year. the issue of Time magazine has a stinging anthology of missteps and foibles of the Congress in -the regulation of private pension plans. The cover story that is pictured here on this cover of Time magazine. called. "The Great Retirement RipoffMillions of Americans who think they will retire withbenefits are in for a nasty surprisehow corporations are picking peoples pocketswith the help of Congress." That is the status of the American workers pension system today. It is a. system that is in peril. and it continues .to be in peril because of the lack of action by this Congress. For 3 years. we have been warning the President and this Congress that we must take decisive action to strengthen unfunded pension plans. Back in July of 2002. 1 wrote Secretary ONeill and Secretary Chao. urging them to take action after private pension underfunding quadrupled $25 billion to $111 billion. I wrote to them that "The implications of such massive shortfall in pension funds are staggering. for pensioners. taxpayers and for private companies themselves. As part of your agencys statutory duties. as overseers of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. it is incumbent upon you." Mr. and Mrs. Secretary. "to ensure that private pension plans continue to be properly and adequately funded. and that the economic security of employees and taxpayers is no further endangered." What do you think happened since I wrote that letter back in July of 2002? Private pension plans underfunding has quadrupled again to nearly $450 billion. The pension plans of hardworking men and women in this country. the pension plans that they are basing their retirement plans on. the pension plans that they are relying on for the future care of their spouses and other members of their family are underfunded by $450 billion. The deficit at the PBGC. the agency that is supposed to guarantee these pensions should these companies go out of business. should these. pensions be put into default. they are. in fact. now at greater risk of having to pay out billions of dollars to make up the shortfall. In fact. they are at risk of whether or not the PBGC can continue. given the amount of shortfall that exists in Americas pension plans. Since we wrote the Secretaries back then and since the quadrupling of the underfunding. hundreds of thousands of employees at U.S. Airways and United have lost billions of dollars in promised benefits. What has this Congress done about this? Absolutely nothing. It- took -years for the Bush administration to get a reform plan up to the Congress. and it has not lifted a finger to push for the passage of that plan. Where is the leadership on behalf of Americas working families? Where is the sense of urgency to protect billions of dollars in promised retirement benefits that are now threatened? After years of costly delay. finally the House and Senate committees have passed legislation out of committee. but there is an ugly truth about the bills that many of you do not know about. When the Members of Congress voted on these bills. they were not given the facts about what these bills really do: What is the impact of these bills on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. what is the impact on the companies who we were raising the premiums for. what is the impact on the taxpayers. and what is the impact on Americas workers and their retirement plans. When we voted on one of these socalled pension bills last spring. the committee Democrats voted "present" because we had no information on the legislations impact. A few weeks ago. several weeks after the committee voted. we asked the PBGC and CBO what. infact. are. the real impacts? What they have told us is that it has "made the situation worse. that the bill that was passed inthe committee actually hastens the pension crisis. Here is what the Congressional Budget Office wrote us in October of this year: "H.R. 2830." the pension bill. "would increase PBGCs 10year net costs by $9 billion. or about 14 percent. compared with what it would be under current policy." So we made the problem for the guaranty corporation worse with this bill.