    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [April 11, 1996]
    [Pages 569-572]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Announcing Proposed Retirement Savings and Security Legislation
    April 11, 1996

        Thank you very much. Thank you, Shawn and Secretary Rubin. Secretary
    Bentsen, it's nice to have you back in the Rose Garden; to all the
    business people here; the representatives of working people who are
    here; and to all the members of the administration who are here who
    worked on this project--I thank not only those who are here on the
    platform with me but those who are in the audience, especially Marty
    Slate at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
        This is a very important day today. There are an awful lot of small-
    business owners, like Shawn, who are trying to do well not only for
    their companies but by their employees. We want to help them to give
    retirement opportunity and security to their workers. There are an awful
    lot of working people out there today who are afraid that if anything
    happens to the job they're in now, that they'll also lose the
    opportunity for a secure retirement. And we want them and their families
    to have the opportunity of that security when they're out there working
    hard and doing the best they can.
        I have said many times that we are living in an age of remarkable
    possibility where more Americans than ever before will have the
    opportunity to live out their dreams. But we also have significant
    challenges, and one of those great challenges is to help in this
    incredibly dynamic economy, so dominated by rapid changes of information
    and technology, so subject to global markets, which is basically a
    positive thing--I was so happy to hear Shawn say that the product that
    his company makes might be used to install on mass transportation to
    protect people from terrorist attacks; that alone would be one of the
    most significant advances we've seen in this country in many years. But
    we have to find a way to keep the dynamism of this global economy going
    and still allow people who are working in it in good faith to achieve a
    measure of security for themselves, their families, and their children.
        This problem is similar to the problems that people faced a century
    ago when our grandparents moved from the farm to the factory and from
    the country to the city. There were

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    vast new opportunities, but also so much disruption there was a lot of
    insecurity. And over time, our country found ways to build mechanisms of
    security and stability into the lives of working families, which enabled
    our economy to continue to grow into the world's strongest but enabled
    all Americans who are working to benefit from it and to stabilize their
    lives, their family's lives, and in the process, their communities'
    lives.
        That is the challenge we face today. When I took office, the economy
    was drifting; unemployment was high; the few new jobs we were getting
    were in lower wage industries overwhelmingly; the deficit was
    skyrocketing. Our economic team that is here with me today determined
    that we would do something about that. We had two central commitments:
    first, that we had to cut the deficit in half over 4 years, and second,
    that if we did it right and we got interest rates down, we continued to
    invest in education and technology and to aggressively open markets for
    American products, we could also see 8 million new jobs coming into our
    economy.
        Well, those promises have been kept. That deficit will be cut by
    more than 50 percent by the end of this fiscal year, and we already have
    8.5 million new jobs in this economy. And I am proud of that. To give
    you some idea of the dimensions of that achievement, of the Big Seven
    economies in the G-7, America's 8.5 million new jobs are more than 8
    million more than the combined new job totals of the other six countries
    in this very competitive global economy.
        Nonetheless, we see the paradox of the moment because, day after day
    after day, we read about how people feel uncertain and insecure in a new
    world in which America's unemployment rate today is a full point lower
    than the average unemployment rate of the last 25 years. And that is
    because of all the dynamism and the new rules of the economy.
        So the challenge now is: How do we keep the dynamism going? How do
    we keep the new jobs coming in? How do we keep the deficit coming down
    until we balance the budget, and still provide those mechanisms which
    will allow our people in this new age to do what we had to figure out
    how to do 100 years ago: to take advantage of all these new
    opportunities but to still be able to compose a good life for themselves
    and their families, their children, and their communities.
        It is clear that there are at least three things we have to do.
    Working families have to have lifetime access to education and training,
    lifetime access to affordable health care, and they have to have the
    ability to build a pension throughout a lifetime no matter where they
    work or whether they change jobs.
        So we have proposed a ``GI bill'' for America's workers so that if
    whenever people lose their jobs, they can immediately get a voucher that
    will cover their training costs for up to 2 years. We have proposed to
    make the cost of college tuition tax deductible. I have called on the
    Congress to pass the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, which is an important first
    step in guaranteeing access to affordable health care. The bill says you
    can't lose your health insurance when you change jobs or if someone in
    your family gets sick, and I hope and pray that that bill will be coming
    to my desk in the fairly near future.
        Today I am urging Congress to pass this legislation we are proposing
    on retirement security so that people can build retirement throughout
    their careers.
        As Secretary Bentsen said, in the last 3 years we have done a lot to
    protect American pensions and to expand opportunities to save for
    retirement. But there is so much more we have to do. Millions of
    Americans are not saving enough for their retirement. Often they have no
    choice. They either have a job where there's no retirement plan, or they
    have to change jobs. They aren't eligible for savings plans. Their
    employer doesn't offer the pension plan, or sometimes, even if they had
    one, the employer goes out of business before a plan can vest.
        All these people may work as hard as they can. They may be doing all
    the right things. But they still have to worry about what will happen
    when their work is done, and they don't have the options that Secretary
    Rubin talked about, to put their savings into a retirement account that
    could be withdrawn from, tax-free, if there's a family emergency, if
    it's necessary for the health of a parent or the health of a child, or
    if they want to buy a first home or finance a child's education.
        So all these things are, I think, a part of why we can have good
    economic news and still have good Americans working hard, feeling
    uncertain about their future. That is what we're

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    here to do today, to try to respond to that challenge.
        I have proposed legislation to help these hard-working Americans. We
    call it the ``Retirement Savings and Security Act.'' It expands coverage
    to help 51 million working Americans who are not now covered by an
    employer-provided retirement plan. Very importantly, it increases
    portability, so workers can take their retirement savings with them and
    keep saving if they change jobs or lose their job and have to wait a
    time to find a new job. This also enhances security so that retirement
    savings will be there when a worker retires.
        With the ``Retirement Savings and Security Act,'' we can help to
    make retirement something Americans can look forward to, not dread.
    Where their hard-working retirement earnings are concerned, we can give
    Americans peace of mind. First, we ought to make it easier for small
    businesses like Shawn's--I might say, his is growing rather rapidly;
    Secretary Bentsen said he had 11 employees, Shawn said, ``No, 13''--
    [laughter]--and next month there will be a couple more. We ought to make
    it easier for them and, indeed, for all employers to provide pensions or
    other retirement plans.
        Right now, three-quarters of the workers in large businesses have
    employer-provided pensions, compared to only one-quarter of workers in
    small businesses. So we would establish a new kind of 401(k) plan for
    employees of small businesses. They could expand coverage with this
    provision alone by up to 10 million working Americans.
        Second, we should expand IRA's. We want to double income eligibility
    so that 20 million more Americans earning up to $100,000 a year can take
    this tax deduction. This would, first, raise the savings rate in America
    and, second, make it possible for other family emergencies or needs to
    be met, for our plan would allow IRA withdrawals for education and
    training, first-time home purchases, major medical expenses, or during
    long-term unemployment.
        Third, we have to make these pensions portable. This could help more
    than 5 million workers every single year. It means workers in new jobs
    will not have to wait to start saving in an employer pension plan. And
    we can start at home. We will start by allowing Federal workers to save
    from the first day on the job. People would be able to keep saving
    through a 401(k) plan even as they move from job to job. We will further
    ensure that veterans who serve their country will not risk an
    interruption in their pension coverage. And it will guarantee coverage
    and benefits for more union workers who change jobs often, like those in
    the construction industries.
        Fourth, we must continue to enhance pension security. We build on
    what we have done to help secure pensions through tighter enforcement.
    Most employers do play by the rules, but we must ensure that no employer
    can easily skim from their employees' contributions. Our plan cracks
    down on fraud, requires broader audits, and protects workers like those
    whose pensions were threatened in the Orange County bankruptcy.
        Finally, we should not go backward. As Secretary Rubin said, in the
    budget plan that I vetoed, Congress permitted $20 billion to be taken
    out of pension plans affecting--excuse me--in the 1980's, companies took
    $20 billion out of pension plans that affected something like 2\1/2\
    million American workers. And in 1994 when I signed the legislation that
    Secretary Rubin and Secretary Bentsen referred to, we were at that time
    looking at the possibility that 8\1/2\ million more American workers
    could lose their pensions. So the '94 legislation clearly saved the
    pensions of 8\1/2\ million American workers and stabilized those of 40
    million others.
        Now, when the budget passed, part of it was giving a green light to
    corporations to take $15 billion more out of pension plans. One of the
    reasons I vetoed that budget--one of several--was that I do not believe,
    after all the horrible experience of the eighties and after what we went
    so far to do in a bipartisan fashion in 1994 to stabilize the pension
    funds of the country, that we ought to turn around and repeat the
    mistakes of the past. Our first rule ought to be to do no harm in an age
    of opportunity and uncertainty.
        Now I want to call on the Congress to help us move forward. In many
    of the things that I have proposed today, there is very broad bipartisan
    support--broad bipartisan support for making the 401(k) plans more
    readily available, broad bipartisan support for an expanded IRA. We have
    to do the portability piece of this; we have to do it. We have to create
    an environment where ordinary working Americans can look forward to a
    future with excitement. They'll say, ``Hey, well, maybe I'll have to do
    more

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    jobs than my parents and grandparents did, but I'll always be able to
    get education and training. I'll always be able to afford health care
    and have access to it. I'll always be able to have a retirement plan for
    my later years. My family is going to be all right in this new world.''
        That is what this legislation is all about. That's what retirement
    savings and security means. I hope the Congress will join with us. I
    hope we can pass all the elements of this plan, and we ought to be able
    to do it fairly quickly because I do not believe there is a partisan
    issue here. This is something we can and should do for America, and we
    ought to do it now.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:23 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Shawn Marcell, president and chief
    executive officer, Prima Facie, Inc., Conshohocken, PA.