[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4933]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1220
                    THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSAL

  (Mr. MESSER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MESSER. The President's budget proposal reportedly would cap the 
amount of money people could save in individual retirement accounts. 
This is a very bad idea. More than a third of people aged 55 and older 
are not saving for their retirements. Three-quarters have saved much 
less than they will need to retire comfortably.
  We should be encouraging people to save. We need to encourage people 
to take more responsibility for their future well-beings instead of 
discouraging sound financial planning. We need to incentivize self-
reliance instead of government dependence. This proposal fails on all 
of these fronts.
  Rest assured, Mr. Speaker, the White House has said that the savings 
cap will allow ``substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable 
levels of retirement saving.'' My constituents don't need the President 
deciding what is reasonable for them in their retirements. They don't 
need him deciding anything else for them either. We need sensible 
reform.

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