Federal Retirement Reform Act of 2009
Floor Speech
FEDERAL RETIREMENT REFORM ACT OF 2009 -- (House of Representatives - April 01, 2009)
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Chairman Skelton and Chairman Towns for the hard work they put into this bill. I am here today to say this is a good bill on the front end. I am sad to say this is a bad bill on the back end.
What this bill does, which was worked out on a very bipartisan basis with all speaking here today, is in fact it does recognize that modern retirement plans should have as many options as possible, and certainly adding the Roth IRA option for some Federal workers is extremely good.
Additionally, the advantages for the military and military commanders to be able to look at their individual needs of their services and allow for different opting in and out patterns of course makes sense, and I appreciate Chairman Towns' willingness to work on that fix during the markup.
The majority in our committee and the minority in our committee found this to be a very bipartisan issue to work on, and I appreciate the fact that this is good for the troops and on paper saves money. However, I have to say, the back end of this bill, sponsored by Members of the majority not speaking yet here today, is nothing but a piggy bank for other projects, for special interest projects.
The fact that this is a tobacco bill begs the question of: If we were to free up 2 or 3 or more billion dollars from a military budget in outlying years, why would this be a reason, when we have trillions of dollars of deficits, to spend money? I think the majority knows it is not.
In fact, the idea that you on paper save money by members of the government opting out of pre-tax contributions in favor of the Roth IRA post-tax contribution and thus creating additional tax revenue, at a time when we have a deficit at the highest in our history, says not one penny ever saved will in fact go to deficit reduction under this majority.
So, will I vote for this bill? Of course, I will. It does a lot of good things for our Federal workers. The fact, though, that the provision for family smoking prevention is not funded through the ordinary course of revenue but rather through this scheme that, depending upon how many workers choose Roth IRAs, may or may not produce the money that is about to be spent, I find wrong and I find misguided.
As the chairman said, there were a number of things we did for the military. There is more that we should do. Only the U.S. military is eligible for TSP but receives no match.
It is very clear that, in a modern military, one in which only about one in four serve until retirement on active duty, the TSP is all the military takes with them when they leave. That famous 20-year retirement does not vest in 5 years the way it does with the majority and the minority, all of us as Members of Congress; in fact, it takes 18 1/2 years to lock in a military retirement and 20 years to appreciate it. Clearly, the military does not enjoy what we in Congress enjoy, which is TSP, with a match, and a 5-year vesting schedule so that we can take our retirement plan with us whenever we leave, in as few years as 5.
I do once again thank all the Members on both sides of the aisle that worked hard on the front ends of this bill. I believe it has merit and should be positively received and voted for.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, once again, I have to say it is not the front end of this bill that anyone should object to. The part we are seeing here today is excellent. But as Chairman Lynch said, and said quite rightfully, it is calculated that this piece of legislation will save net approximately $2.2 billion for better or worse on the backs of our retirees.
It is a short-term savings, Mr. Speaker. It is not, in fact, a long-term savings. Any time you do collect money now but don't collect it later, it is going to eventually catch up. So for the short period of time in which this $2.2 billion is generated, it certainly would have been appropriate for all of us to be able to use this money in the committee for the Federal workforce. And the part that upsets me is that we are neither returning it to the taxpayers in the form of less deficit, nor are we using it for structural changes for the Federal workforce, whether uniform military or civilian. That is the only problem.
Again, what this bill does, it does well. What this bill eventually does is, in fact, fund a pet project of the former chairman, Mr. Waxman, for tobacco programs, something that has certainly been funded very well, funded on the backs of plenty of other programs. Candidly, I don't believe that this is the best use of the money at a time we are running trillions in deficits.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I continue to urge my colleagues to vote for this bill because of all the good things it does. I also urge my colleagues to continue to look at what we owe our Federal workforce, and particularly as previous speakers have said, our uniform men and women. Men and women in uniform enter the service voluntarily. Four years, 6 years, 8 years later, they often leave. As a matter of fact, with the up-or-out program, many of them are not promoted and must leave. Therefore, they leave the military service with less than 20 years. Therefore, they have nothing. They have their GI Bill, but they have no retirement.
Only, only in the Federal uniform services do we treat people that way. The President served 1 day, and he was eligible for his lifetime benefit. I don't begrudge the President hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the rest of his life or any of the previous Presidents. But it is amazing to me that the President vests as soon as he is sworn in. Members of Congress fully vest after just 5 years; and yet, we are looking at our men and women in uniform being shot at, being injured, often being forced into early retirement or early leaving of the service with 10 or 20 or 30 percent disability, just enough they can't really do the job they came in to do, but not enough to get, if you will, a handsome retirement. They then enter the workforce later in life, and they enter with instead of a head start, with an impairment.
This $2.2 billion was only about one-tenth of what it would have taken to provide matching TSP funds for our men and women in uniform. Certainly, it is even a fraction of what it would take to give them a defined benefit plan, even close to what we here in Congress get. But certainly, as we pass this piece of legislation today as a downpayment for reform, we need to begin looking at what it is going to take to provide our men and women in uniform equal justice with the rest of the Federal workforce.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Once again, in closing, this is a good bill. As the previous speakers have said, we were able to fix a number of ills, including what was mentioned by the gen tle lady from the District of Columbia.
What I'm sad about is that we didn't begin to make a down payment on some other important areas; certainly, most among them, our uniform services. We took the benefit of putting military personnel on to a Roth IRA without looking into whether we could do something for them.
Mr. Speaker, there's no question in this body that our men and women in uniform that are not able to retire in 20 years will leave the military only with whatever they happen to put into their Thrift Savings Plan. They're basically finding themselves encouraged to save on what is one of the smallest salaries that anyone could imagine for a particular private, corporal or sergeant. And yet, we will not even make the 3 percent match we make for ourselves here in Congress.
So I certainly would hope that, in the foreseeable future, this Congress, on a bipartisan basis, as we're doing here today, can see fit to make a bipartisan down payment for our men and women in uniform to allow their Thrift Savings Plan to have at least some match, which today it doesn't have, and leaves them often with no retirement when they leave the military.
With that, I want to thank the chairman for the markup on this bill, which was done in a very cordial fashion, pre-agreed and worked out so that it could be done efficiently and we could get the best possible bill to the floor.
I yield back.
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