Date: 2002-06-21
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. the President had it right soon after Enron when he was speaking down in Virginia at the naval base and he said. "Weve got to make sure that. whats good for the captain is good for the crew." Last year prior to Enron. we passed this legislation. and this legislation greatly increased the disparities and the privileges to highincome earners within the pension system. Yes. we have done some things for those people at the bottom. for middleclass earners. but the fact of the matter is that increasing the amount of money that they can contribute issomewhat meaningless when only 2 percent of the individuals contribute the. maximum because they simply do not make enough to have that kind of discretionary income to make additional contributions. But for those at the top. it is a very generous bill. Yes. we are simply extending last years bill. but what we had is we had an opportunity to review last years bill. but we chose not to take that opportunity. We could haVe reviewed last years bill in light of Enron. in light of Global Crossing. in light of Adelphia. in light of Tyco. when we see that clearly there are two classes of pensioners in -this country. Those ordinary employees get treated with far less deference. with far less resources by the corporation than those who are at the corporate elite. We see those who are at the corporate elite have their pensions insured. They have their stock options not taxed in some cases if the company moves overseas. We see that those individuals are given severance pay that is insured. that is guaranteed. so that the very people who destroyed some of these corporations are now getting the most benefit. Yet this legislation refuses to address those issues. The gentleman in the well that just preceded me said it is a simple basic rule: If you violate the law. you should be prosecuted. If you have not. no. What we are finding out is it is really not about a violation of law. Many of these activities are sanctioned within the law. That is what has got to trouble middleclass Americans as they see this rush in the Congress to continue to stuff benefits to the wealthiest elite people in this country. whether it is in the pension system. whether it is in the estate tax system. whether it is in the income tax system. There -has been a ifush by this Congress to stuff the money to the wealthiest people in this country before we hit the deficit wall and before America realizes that we are looting the Social Security Trust Fund. It is very much like the executives of Tyco and Enron and Adelphia and these corporations that in the months preceding their bankruptcy. they started paying off their debts. Now when we examine who they were paying off. their childrens real estate companies. their childrens travel companies. their wives auction houses. their wives small businesses. They are getting the money out of the corporation to get it into their friends hands before the bankruptcy. So what was the end in Enron? One hundred forty executives walked away with 3- or $400 million. and the thousands .of employees that were laid. off walked away with $13.000. We have an opportunity to reexamine the laws that govern the pension plans of this Nation. and we refuse to do it. We are now coconspirators in that disparity between the captain and the crew. But as this ship starts to sink. and we start to take the Social Security Trust Fund with us. the Republicans are not even going to hit the emergency bell as they head for the lifeboats with their friends. They are just going to get in the lifeboats with the income tax cuts. with the estate tax cuts. with the pension changes for the wealthiest people in this Nation. and they are going to sail away and watch everybody else go down with the ship. What we are doing here is we are taking the payroll tax that pays for Social Security. and we are transferring it to the wealthiest people in the Nation. because that is how this $50 billion is being paid for. -because there is no other tax available because we are running a nonSocial Security deficit. We ought .to understand that. If we are going to do that. we ought to make sure that some of those middleclass income workers in this Nation get some of the benefits. But in this bill 77 percent of the benefit goes to the top 20 percent of the people.