[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 192 (Tuesday, December 3, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6821]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               SECURE ACT

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, as more Americans enjoy longer lives than 
ever before, it is more crucial than ever that retirement plans and the 
policies that govern them keep pace with healthcare innovation and 
demographic change. That is the reason why a bipartisan coalition in 
both houses of Congress has proposed the SECURE Act, to modernize 
retirement savings policies.
  For the first time, it would give businesses the option to band 
together to create pooled retirement plans for their employees, helping 
them save time and money and expanding access to millions of workers to 
an indispensable job benefit. This would especially help small 
businesses who would love to offer their employees retirement plans but 
simply cannot afford it on their own. It would allow graduate and 
postdoctoral students to save for their retirements by contributing 
income from their stipends and fellowships to Individual Retirement 
Accounts. And it would allow parents to withdraw retirement funds, 
without penalty, for the birth or adoption of a child, providing 
special help to younger families when they need it most.
  I support all of the above provisions, and to see them enacted, I am 
willing to accept multiple provisions in this bill that I oppose. 
Unfortunately, one provision goes over the line, would hurt the very 
workers it purports to help, and would set a dangerous precedent for 
Federal policy. This measure would allow a handful of select businesses 
to cut their required contributions to their workers' pension plans, 
while still promising those workers full benefits.
  Under current law, if a pension plan fails to meet its funding 
target, the plan sponsor must eliminate the funding shortfall through 
additional plan contributions, plus interest, over 7 years. The bailout 
in the SECURE Act, however, would extend that period to 30 years for 
only a handful of struggling newspapers. Additionally, it would entitle 
them to legally assume a higher return on investment than other 
businesses must use.
  This would reduce the amount that certain community newspapers are 
required to contribute to their employees' plans each month and, given 
the longer payback window, would also make it less likely that these 
bailed out companies would ever make up the shortfall. In other words, 
this bill grants a special bailout to a handful of community newspapers 
by allowing them to shortchange their workers' pensions.
  This is bad policy and bad precedent. This short-sighted strategy 
might prolong the life of these community newspapers for a while; that 
is what short-sighted strategies do. But it would only do so at the 
expense of their employees because, when these newspaper pensions 
inevitably become insolvent, which is the trajectory they are already 
on, they will most likely end up in the Pension Benefit Guaranty 
Corporation. The PBGC is a federally-chartered business that provides 
pension insurance through premiums paid by private companies. In other 
words, all the companies required to pay into the PBGC, but that do not 
receive a special bailout, will be forced to pay the price. This is the 
opposite of ``secure.'' We ought not provide special treatment to a 
select group of community newspapers in the first place. And we 
certainly shouldn't set the precedent that those bailouts entitle 
recipients to raid their workers' pensions and then force more 
prudently run businesses to pick up the tab.
  This is why I have an amendment that strikes this pension bailout 
provision out of the bill. A few weeks ago, Senator Toomey offered a 
reasonable path forward for the SECURE Act. He suggested allowing the 
Senate to consider the SECURE Act with five Republican amendments and 
five Democratic amendments of their choosing. Unfortunately, Senator 
Murray refused to accept that proposal, claiming that the amendments 
are ``not in the interest of hardworking Americans.''
  I respectfully disagree. In addition to my amendment, which would 
stop corporate bailouts and protect workers from corporate raids on 
their pension funds, Senator Cruz and Senator Braun have amendments to 
expand 529 savings accounts. Under their proposals, parents and 
grandparents could save money for the educational expenses of children 
with disabilities, for homeschooling, and for apprenticeships and 
training programs.
  All of these amendments are ``in the interests of American workers.'' 
The Senate should consider each of them. I hope my Democratic 
colleagues will recognize the need to put this bill on the Senate floor 
so we can vote on the underlying text, as well as the reasonable 
amendments that have been proposed.

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