Signing of the Pension Protection Act of 2006
Signing of the Pension Protection Act of 2006
Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Committee on Finance, with jurisdiction over taxes, played a large role in drafting the Pension Protection Act of 2006, working closely with Sen. Mike Enzi, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. President Bush is signing the bill into law today. Grassley made the following comment on the legislation. This comment is available by phone or online. Please see below for instructions. Details of specific provisions follow.
"This is one of the most important pieces of legislation to pass Congress this year. It's the first major overhaul of pension guarantee legislation that passed the Congress in 1974. We found that the system is broken. This bill will fix it. It's going to help guarantee that Enron-type scandals, where you lose your entire retirement savings, don't happen to employees again. It will guarantee that corporations pay up and make sure their pensions are well-funded. It's going to do away with the game-playing by which corporations state that their pensions are in better shape than they really are. It's going to make sure that United Airlines-type situations, where the pension gets dumped on the government and dramatically cut, doesn't happen again. Basically it's going to say to the workers of America, what you've been promised for retirement will be delivered. And it's going to make sure that corporations deliver on what they've promised to their workers.
"It also has some other things in it that are very beneficial and go beyond pensions, also related to retirement, like guaranteeing that people will be able to put more money in 401(k) plans and IRAs. It reforms key laws governing non-profit organizations to make sure that money that's deducted for charitable purpose goes to charitable purpose and isn't used as a gimmick to avoid the payment of taxes. It's also going to encourage savings for college. It makes permanent the tax treatment of 529 plans that otherwise was going to end in 2010. People will be able to save well into the future for their kids' college."
http://grassley.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=5160&Month=8&Year=2006