March 29,2017

Wyden Floor Statement on Republican Vote to Make it Harder to Save for Retirement

As Prepared for Delivery

WASHINGTON - Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., delivered a statement on the Senate floor blasting a Republican vote to abolish auto-IRA laws.

“In my view there ought to be bipartisan interest in helping these workers find new opportunities to save – it ought to be easier than it is today,” Wyden said. “I’ve sat through countless committee hearings and been a part of multiple floor debates when I’ve heard members on both sides talk about the importance of this issue. Yet here we are in the Senate, with the majority ramming through resolutions that would make it harder to save, not easier.

“It’s automatic and painless for workers so that more people will start saving. It’s cost-effective and straightforward for employers, eliminating a lot of red tape and administrative hassle. The Trump Administration says it wants to cut red tape that burdens business. This legislation will do the opposite, making it harder for small businesses to provide retirement savings programs for their workers.”

Wyden’s full remarks can be found below.

From the people who brought you a Trumpcare bill that benefitted only the wealthy and special interests comes legislation that will make it harder for working Americans to save for retirement.

Once again it’s special interests with deep pockets and strong political influence winning out over typical, hard-working families.

Today the Senate is debating the first of two resolutions that will hang a big dark cloud over new auto-IRA programs that states like Oregon and a handful of cities are building. Right now it’s the locally-based programs in danger of being undermined. The state programs could be next.

So at a time when America faces an enormous savings crisis – when a little over half of workers approaching retirement age have nothing, zero, saved in retirement accounts such as IRAs or 401(k) plans – these resolutions amount to a plan that could take this crisis from bad to worse.

Around 55 million Americans do not have access to a retirement plan at work. More often than not it’s the employees of small and medium-sized businesses who don’t have that job perk, and it’s no fault of their own.

In my view there ought to be bipartisan interest in helping these workers find new opportunities to save – it ought to be easier than it is today. I know I’ve sat through countless committee hearings and been a part of multiple floor debates when I’ve heard members on both sides talk about the importance of this issue. Yet here we are in the Senate, with the majority ramming through resolutions that would make it harder to save, not easier.

Colleagues, here’s the background on this issue and what it means to my home state. A number of states, including Oregon, and a few cities have looked for smart, fresh approaches to retirement savings. They want to help close the gap for those 55 million Americans without an employer-sponsored plan.

So after a lot of study and careful planning, Oregon is one of a handful of states that has passed what’s called an “auto-IRA” law. The program is called OregonSaves and it’s set to launch this summer.

For Oregon workers, what it means is that when you get a job, you’ll get a retirement account, and you’ll be able to start saving. It won’t be mandatory, meaning that workers will be able to opt out. But it’s designed to be simple and easy to use for everybody involved.

It’s automatic and painless for workers so that more people will start saving. It’s cost-effective and straightforward for employers, eliminating a lot of red tape and administrative hassle. The Trump Administration says it wants to cut red tape that burdens business. This legislation will do the opposite, making it harder for small businesses to provide retirement savings programs for their workers.

One after the other, Oregon employers are raving about the opportunity this program represents for them, especially when it comes to recruiting and retaining top-notch employees and helping those workers build a nest egg.

Judi Randall, the Finance Director of an affordable housing provider in Roseburg, Oregon, says it would make a big difference for a rural non-profit like hers to have OregonSaves available to help their employees secure their futures.

Joy Andersen is the administrator at the Asher Community Health Center in Fossil, Oregon, a small town of about 500 people. Joy talked about how important it is to have an attractive retirement plan to recruit employees to come work in a community like Fossil in eastern Oregon.

Kevin Max runs a company called Statehood Media out of Bend, Oregon. Statehood Media is a small company with big aspirations, and Kevin rightly notes that there’s no better state in the country than Oregon when it comes to employee recruitment. Kevin says that OregonSaves would give companies like his another leg up with an even better package of benefits.

It defies logic that the Congress would want to stamp out a program like OregonSaves that has such enormous potential, but the resolution going after state initiatives could pose exactly that kind of threat.

Colleagues, these programs aren’t easy for states or cities to set up. There are tricky legal issues that date back decades that have to be worked through. It took a lot of heavy lifting here at the federal level for the Labor Department to get the legal roadblocks out of the way.

If these resolutions pass, it could wipe out months and months of work that have gone into making this kind of state- and locally-based program possible.

In my judgement, colleagues, this one ought to be a no brainer. People want to do the right thing – they’re willing to scrimp and save and set money aside for retirement. Nobody wants to face a retirement of stretching every penny they’ve got, relying only on Social Security checks, family members and food banks to make ends meet.

People want to have the opportunity to save, and auto-IRA programs like OregonSaves are a commonsense way to extend those opportunities to more workers. The Senate ought to stand up and recognize that this is a chance to put the interests of working people ahead of special interests.

So let’s do the right thing for hard-working people who want to save and vote these resolutions down.

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