Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2830, Pension Protection Act of 2005
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2830, PENSION PROTECTION ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - December 15, 2005)
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Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for all his hard work on the Rules Committee.
It is rather interesting, and Mr. McGovern has alluded to this a number of times, but it is interesting today as we watch with great anxiety and anticipation and a sense of celebration as Iraqis run the gauntlet of violence to go out and vote for democracy, at the same time the Republicans in the House of Representatives close down democracy in the people's House.
Republicans, a number of them stood up here today and said this is a very complex bill. This is the most important bill that may come before this Congress because it affects millions of Americans' livelihoods and retirements, but it has to come under a closed rule. It cannot withstand debate, it cannot withstand amendments, and it cannot withstand changes. That is the death of democracy in the people's House.
So let us applaud it in Iraq today, but let us understand what is happening here, the gradual glacial process of destroying debate on the floor of the House of Representatives and the right of Members. Mr. Visclosky wanted to talk about people who were being impacted by these policies who were losing their jobs and losing their workplace and losing their retirement benefits, but he was not going to be allowed to offer those amendments to have that amendment because of the autocratic nature of the Republican leadership in this House. They cannot stand democracy, they cannot stand open rules, and they cannot stand open debate. Because it is their way, as Mr. McGovern says, or the highway.
This Republican pension bill is the greatest assault on the middle class standard of living in the history of Congress because this bill accelerates the process by which millions of American workers will lose the retirement nest eggs that they were counting on. They will lose the security of their golden years, if you will, because of the accounts that they were counting on.
And it need not happen. It is not just about the organized plans, UAW or the Teamsters or the building trades. This is about millions of Americans who do not have the benefit of a union, who do not have the benefit of collective bargaining, because in a survey of the major employers by the Benefits Association, 60 percent of those people say that this bill will cause them to freeze their plans, freeze their retirement benefits. You can continue to work, but you will not continue to get any retirement, additional retirement benefits.
What does the CBO say about this bill? It says it makes this problem $9 billion worse for the Pension Guaranty Corporation. What does the Pension Guaranty Corporation say about this bill? That it will make it billions of dollars worse over the next few years. So we have made the problem worse, which is the solvency of the Pension Guaranty Corporation, and that is a corporation that protects pensions that now is anticipating hundreds of billions of dollars of potential liabilities in the future.
So we accelerate the problem and we diminish the capacities of the government to deal with this and the ability of the private sector to deal with it. And interestingly enough, we make it easier for corporations to simply get rid of these pension benefits without negotiations just as United Airlines did. We were told that a couple of those plans possibly could have been saved, according to the Pension Guaranty Corporation. Two days later they were put into bankruptcy.
This pension plan was designed when corporations went out of business. The gentleman from Indiana is here. When Studebaker went out of business we created this because there was no more company. Yesterday in USA Today United Airlines announced it is coming out of bankruptcy and a couple of hundred executives are going to take 15 percent ownership in the company and they are going to leave bankruptcy with $285 million in their pocket, in their pocket. And those workers who gave back their pensions, gave back their wages year after year after year to help this airline which was mismanaged and run into the ground, they leave with nothing. You say, oh, they have a job. Well, the people who are responsible, the executives for running this company, they leave with stock bonuses.
That is what this bill does. It continues this problem, this absolute problem of corruption of the rights of people to protect their retirements.
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