Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the majority leader, and I want to commend him for the work he has done to put together the bill we have before us today. His leadership on the Select Committee was fair, open, honest. We had some good debates, and it was done in a not just bipartisan but a nonpartisan way and I know that will continue tonight as we get through some of these statements and then later tonight and tomorrow into the amendment process. Briefly responding to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick), she will be happy to know that workers' rights are indeed preserved in the underlying legislation. All of title V is included in the legislation. I hope she will read it. I would also like to say that collective bargaining is explicitly not just permitted but guaranteed. So we are hearing a lot of statements tonight that may be based on some information that is being passed around that is not accurate. I hope people will read the legislation so that we can keep to the facts. Shaping of this legislation, Mr. Chairman, has been and will continue to be a daunting task. All of America is looking at us to help protect the homeland and produce a Department of Homeland Security that is worthy of the name. It is a challenge, and we had better get it right. This Department will be the keystone of our national strategy to confront a menacing threat and to shut it down. Its mission as proposed by the President is critical. First, to prevent terrorist attacks; second, to reduce our vulnerabilities to attack, hardening our infrastructure; third, to minimize damage should we be attacked; and, finally, and this is very important in this new agency, to be sure that those functions that are being transferred to this new Department that are not related to homeland security are also not neglected. And we will hear something about that tonight and into the amendments. This is all a big job, and it results in a very big agency, 170,000 employees. We know it will be a big agency. The question is, and the gentlewoman from California raised it earlier, will it also be a lean and agile agency to be able to respond to the threat that we find ourselves confronting in this new century? Will this thing work? I think we are going to determine that in our votes tonight and tomorrow. We are going to determine whether this new agency is going to have the ability to rationalize and bring together 22 different agencies of Government. It is a difficult task, admittedly. It is necessary to do it. As we have heard so many people speak so well about tonight the necessity of consolidating and streamlining, being sure that we have real accountability in a system that does not exist now; and I do not think anybody would say it does when there are so many different agencies and Departments of government responsible, nobody is responsible. We have got to be sure that we take these 22 different agencies and we bring them together as a single team focused on a single mission. This will require managerial, budget, and, yes, personnel flexibility. Without it, the needed consolidation and streamlining just will not happen; it will not work. Second, beyond this huge organizational challenge, the new Department must be able to meet an agile, deadly, and unpredictable threat, the threat of terrorism. It must be able to do so with cleverness, with speed and with flexibility of its own. I believe the Select Committee bill we have before us meets these tests. It does provide us with a 21st century agile Department, and it must not be weakened through the amendment process if we are to properly protect our homeland. The most fundamental responsibility we have as Members of Congress, of course, is to protect our country and to protect our citizens. I strongly believe the bill that we have before us puts the pieces in place to see that with good congressional oversight we can indeed meet that responsibility. As we work through these amendments, I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will continue to focus on the necessity of rising to this daunting challenge without partisanship, without rancor, but with one goal in mind, and that is how best to protect our families. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) chairman of the Government Reform Criminal Justice and Drug Policy Subcommittee.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, one of the House's experts on homeland security.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the distinguished majority leader. He led the Select Committee panel, he listened to all the standing committees, and he did a good job in presenting a fair and open process with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), the founder and chair of the Congressional Fire Caucus. (Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito), a member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and also someone who has taken a special interest in homeland security issues.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, could the Chair tell us what the division of time is? We have the right to close, I believe.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds simply to make the point and give the gentlewoman some comfort that section 2301, whistleblower protection, is very much a part of this legislation. If the gentlewoman looks at the language, it is explicitly referenced. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), the only Member of Congress who is in the National Guard.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barr), a member of both the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform. (Mr. BARR of Georgia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Science. (Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), a member of the Committee on Government Reform and leader on civil service and technology issues. (Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) for not just her work on the rule, which I think is a good and fair and open rule, but also her work on the Select Committee on Homeland Security and adding so much to the effort to put together a Department that really will work. Today, we are working on a rule that will consider what I think will be one of the most important pieces of legislation this House will consider in this generation. Our votes on the floor over the next day or day and a half will determine the performance of the largest single reorganization of government in our history. That is a daunting enough task and a huge consolidation challenge; but even more important is what this is all about, the mission of this reorganization, and that is to protect our families from the shadowy threat of terror. We have all talked about some of our personal reflections on this. All of us as Members of Congress have had our constituents affected by the terrorist attack of September 11. In my hometown of Cincinnati, we had the misfortune of having a number of people who were in New York City on that fateful day. One was a young man who grew up down the street from me, and his funeral took place at a church a few houses down from my own home. There I met his young wife and his young kids; and as I have gone through this process, I keep thinking back on them. Never, never can we let our defenses down and let this happen again. We cannot make ourselves immune from terrorism; but we can make our country safer, and we as Members of Congress have as our most fundamental responsibility to protect our shores and to protect the citizens of the United States; and this is what this effort is all about. This is to take this Federal effort to protect this country and streamline it and consolidate it and make sense so that indeed we can do our best as Members of Congress to respond to this threat. It is not a partisan issue. It is not an issue that should divide us as Democrats or Republicans. It should bring us together as Americans to do our best. I am encouraged by this rule. I want to commend the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), and I want to commend the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) for putting together a fair rule, 12 amendments on each side. I also want to commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) because in the process of getting this bill to the floor he has led the Select Committee on Homeland Security with great distinction. It has been an open and fair process. I also want to thank the standing committees because they all gave input to the Select Committee on Homeland Security. They did it in an expeditious way but also a thoughtful way. What we ended up with, the underlying bill on the floor before us today that this rule will govern, is a good piece of legislation because it does create the kind of Department we need, and what kind of Department is that? One that has the flexibility and the agility to respond to this enormous consolidation challenge, 22 different agencies and personnel systems, but also the enormously difficult challenge of responding to the actual and deadly threat of terrorism. I would urge, Mr. Speaker, as we go through this process that we retain those flexibilities, the flexibility to manage, the flexibility to budget, the flexibility on personnel, so that indeed we can as Members of Congress say that we have done our best, our very best to be sure that the Federal Government in every way possible is responding to the threat of terrorism and that we have the most efficient and effective way to do so. The rule that creates this Department deserves our strong support, and I urge it on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, as an original cosponsor of H.R. 4755, I rise in strong support of this bill to designate the post office in Lancaster, Ohio as the Clarence Miller Post Office Building. This building served as Clarence's district office while he served the people of Southern Ohio for 26 years as a member of the House of Representatives. Clarence Miller is a native and lifelong resident of Lancaster, Ohio. He was born in 1917. He was the third of six children born to Clarence Miller, Sr., and Delores Lloyd Miller. He married his high school sweetheart, Helen Brown, on December 25, 1936, and they spent 50 happy years together until her passing in 1986. Clarence has two children, Jacqueline and Ronald. He has five grandchildren, Tyler Williams, Todd Williams, Amy Jackson, Jennifer Smith, and Drew Miller and four great-grandchildren--Morgan, Connor, Drew and Grant. He has a surviving brother, Paul, a retired broadcaster and marketing executive in Cincinnati. Clarence grew up during the Great Depression. He was the son of an electrician. Clarence and his brothers and sisters worked to help the family financially during those troubled times, and as a young boy he delivered papers for the Lancaster Eagle Gazette. During high school he unloaded trucks after school at the Omar Bakery, often not returning home until after midnight, and then rising early the next morning to attend classes. Clarence always prided himself on being a self-made man. Following high school he went to work digging ditches for the Ohio Fuel and Gas Co., now called Columbia Gas, and rose through the ranks to become a practicing electrical engineer. While continuing to work full time at Ohio Fuel, Clarence and his brother, Paul, along with their mother, started Miller Electric, a small retail and electric wiring business in Lancaster. Clarence first become interested in politics in the 1950s when the Ohio Fuel and Gas Co. offered courses in civics to its employees to help provide them with a better appreciation of how government operates. Clarence found the subject so captivating that he himself started teaching those courses, and afterwards began thinking about entering politics. His political career began in 1957, when he was appointed to fill an unexpired term as a member of the Lancaster City Council. He was elected to a full term, and then was elected mayor of Lancaster, receiving the largest plurality in the history of the city. Clarence was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1966 and was elected each succeeding Congress by wider margins. Clarence and President George Herbert Walker Bush were members of the same freshman class. For six years Clarence served on the House Agriculture Committee and the Public Works and Transportation Committee, and then he was selected to serve on the powerful Appropriations Committee where he served for the next 20 years. Clarence was noted for his efforts to reduce federal spending during times of skyrocketing deficits. He originated the idea of offering 2-percent across-the-board reduction amendments to appropriations bills, which became known as the Miller Amendments. Clarence always had a keen interest in technology, and was one of a handful of Members of the House to hold both United States and Canadian patents for technical innovations developed while he worked as an electrical engineer. Clarence successfully merged his technical background with his work in Congress. In 1977 he was appointed by the Speaker to be a member of the Technology Assessment Board of the Congress. Clarence received many honors and awards including: honorary doctorate degrees from Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio, and Rio Grande College in Rio Grande, Ohio; the Phillips Medal of Public Service from Ohio University in Athens, OH; the National Associated Businessmen's ``Watchdog of the Treasury Award''; the Americans for Constitutional Action's ``Distinguished Service Award''; and the National Rifle Association's ``Legislator of the Year Award.'' He always took great pride in his work. He was not one to seek the public limelight. Clarence worked quietly and diligently over the years for our nation and for his constituents. He always said it is not important to get your name in the Washington Post or on the network news. Instead, you have to look after the people who sent you here to represent them, and to do what they think is best for the country as a whole. Apparently Clarence's philosophy served him well, because he consistently defeated his opponents over the years by a better than 2- to-1 margin. Mr. Speaker, I urge all members to vote for H.R. 4755 to honor Clarence Miller, a gentleman who served the people of Southern Ohio and our Nation very well in this chamber for 26 years.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairwoman for yielding me the time. I am glad that she was able to correct the record on a few misstatements that have been made this evening. I would like to correct the record again. My friend from Pennsylvania just stood up and talked about Medicare+Choice and how this is the same. It is not. In fact, in this bill, we are helping to make Medicare+Choice work. Just because we have choked off the funding to Medicare+Choice so it does not work for our seniors, including a bunch of mine, who were not getting the right reimbursement has nothing to do with this plan. This is an entirely different plan, but it does help on Medicare+Choice, and I hope people are happy to hear that who are so concerned about it. This is a great plan. This is exactly what our seniors need. One would never design the Medicare program today without adding prescription drugs. The other side wants to add $1 trillion of prescription drugs. After just voting not to raise the debt limit they want to add another $1 trillion. We are doing this within $350 billion, which is responsible, which is, unlike what my friend from Wisconsin said earlier, a lot different than the bill 2 years ago. It is more money, yes, because we believe it is necessary to be able to provide seniors with the coverage they need. CBO has scored this. CBO has said that this will lower prescription drug prices more than any other bill that has been introduced in this House that has been scored by CBO. Our bill lowers drug prices more. There is a discount for all seniors. In fact, for the average senior there will be a 44 percent reduction in the drug costs. Average drug costs $2,150, they only pay $1,200 out of pocket. That is a savings of 44 percent. There is another 44 percent number we ought to hear about tonight and that is for low-income seniors, which is 44 percent of seniors. They will pay no deductible. They will pay no percentage, 20 percent or 50 percent. They only have a nominal copay. They get this for free. That is 44 percent of the seniors. The very people the other side has said tonight repeatedly they are worried about, that they are not going to get a benefit, they get a total benefit. This is precisely the kind of plan that the Republican Party has been talking about for the last couple of years, but it is even better than the one from 2 years ago. It meets the principles. It lowers the cost of prescription drugs and does that now. It guarantees all seniors drug coverage. It gives seniors more choices including Medicare+Choice. It is a good plan. It is affordable. It is voluntary. It preserves the right to choose. I strongly urge its adoption.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind my colleague that he voted for this legislation three times without any low-income saver provision in it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, closing out the first part of this, which is talking about the underlying bill, I would encourage my friend from California to read the fine print again because he is inaccurate with regard to how the top-heavy rules work in this legislation. It keeps the top- heavy rules in place. It does encourage more matching contributions, which is a good thing. Look, this was done over a 5-year period on a bipartisan basis from the start, fully vetted by the committees of Congress. It allows people to save more for their own retirement. It allows for portability. It allows us to simplify the rules so that people can offer more pension plans, particularly small businesses. It is supported by a broad spectrum, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, which will key vote this today, including by the Brotherhood of Carpenters, including by the Building and Trades Council of the AFL-CIO. I encourage all my colleagues to support final passage and extend this good law.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I strongly support the rule. It makes in order the substitute that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) just talked about, which is very fair, and it gives us an opportunity to talk about the important project before us today, which is trying to make permanent these crucial changes in our pension system that we enacted a year ago. I am concerned about the debate that I have heard so far this morning. We are going to have an opportunity during general debate to get into the specific details of the bill. Right now we are just talking about the rule, and yet the other side of the aisle is taking this opportunity to, in a very partisan way, attack the legislation we passed last year with over 400 votes. Those Members who have spoken are among the less than 10 percent of this Congress who did not vote for the legislation, and I sense that there is a fierce partisanship in this House in an election year that makes it very difficult for them to accept the fact that this legislation was developed over a period of over 5 years on a totally bipartisan basis. All these issues were fully vetted with subcommittee hearings and full committee hearings. There has been ample debate on the floor. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), who will speak in a moment, was the cosponsor of this legislation. There was support across the board from the Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, and the Building and Trades Council. I know it is difficult for some Members on the other side of the aisle who would just like to attack each other and saying things like this bill is just about giving more to the rich. That is not the case here. That is not how this bill was developed. That is not the spirit in which the debate has been conducted over the past 5 years on this issue. As we talk about this legislation, and we will have an opportunity to do that when we get beyond the rule debate, I hope we can have a more constructive debate sticking to the facts and sticking to what again in this case has been an unusual, admittedly, but important exercise of this Congress working across party lines to do what is best for the American people. For those who think this is just about the rich, I hope they realize that half of America's workers have no pension whatsoever today; no 401(k), no defined benefit plan, not even the simplest pension program, like a SEP plan or so-called simple plan. Those are the Americans who will be helped by this legislation. It has only been in effect since the first of the year, so we do not have year-end data yet, but all the evidence we have, including what was presented at a hearing yesterday of the Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, indicated it is working to do that. This is not about the rich. This is about helping where it is needed, which is in small businesses. With fewer than half of the workers covered by pensions among small businesses, it is less than 20 percent that have any kind of pension coverage. This is where those low-income workers are who we all want to see get more coverage. By raising the limits and simplifying the plans; taking the away the burdens, costs and liabilities; by permitting portability, all of which is done in this legislation, which again passed this House by more than 400 votes, admittedly not during an election year; by doing all of these things, we are going to be able to give people who work in small businesses more opportunities to be able to save a little money for their own retirement. On the issue of planning, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) said he lives paycheck to paycheck, and that is how most Americans live. That is fine, but I hope the gentleman is planning for his retirement, and I hope he is planning more than 9 years out. That is certainly what this Congress ought to encourage all Americans to do. We need to encourage small businesses to get into the business of providing retirement savings. To do that, they need to know there is some certainty this is going to continue, that we are not going to go from a situation where one can put $15,000 aside in a 401(k) plan to go back to where one can only put $10,000 and $500 aside; to get to a situation where people will know that they will be able to put into their IRA accounts $5,000, and with a catch-up another $2,000, rather than going back to the situation where they can only put $2,000 aside. That is what would happen if this bill were repealed after 9 years, which is the current law. So I would ask my Members on both sides of the aisle to view this differently than we usually do, particularly during an election year, and that is to focus on what is right and good for the American people and not try to make this another partisan contest where we are yelling and screaming at each other about who cares more about poor people, and making it into a class warfare argument. This has not been that process all along. It has been a long and carefully thought out process, bipartisan from the start, and I hope that we can continue in that spirit today.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding time. I will be brief. Just to repeat, we are not really talking about the same bill here. What we are trying to do here today is simply to extend the provisions of the retirement savings law that was passed by this Congress last year. Congress just took up legislation to deal with the post-Enron pension issues, and we passed that on a bipartisan basis. Congress just took up recently corporate governance issues related to Enron. We passed those on a bipartisan basis. We can revisit those, we can go back, maybe we should do different things, but this is not what we are about today. We are talking about the pension changes. Again, the gentleman from California, it is good theater, but he is not talking about the facts. I am happy to go into the lifeboat with the people we are talking about helping. Let me give you some actual statistics rather than just rhetoric. Of those people who are involved in pensions, 77 percent make less than $50,000 a year. These are middle-income workers. These are lower-income workers. Let me give you another statistic. There was a recent study showing that those who benefit most from retirement plans earn between $15,000 and $50,000 a year. Those same families pay slightly more than one-third of all Federal income taxes. They receive two-thirds of the pension accruals in this country. Those are the folks we are trying to help. Beyond that, we are trying to expand these pensions to people who do not have them now. Who are they? They are primarily middle- and lower- income workers. I am not worried about the high-income workers. They have nonqualified plans, meaning they are not even in the pension system. Those are increasing rapidly because we are not doing enough to help free up the pension system. That is what the legislation was about last year. That is why 400 Members of this House supported it. I am happy to get in the lifeboat with those folks. I would hope my colleagues would be as well.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, for yielding me the time and for the work he has done to get us to this point. This is a very important debate we are having today because it is about extending legislation this House passed last year on a totally bipartisan basis by over 400 votes, which is very important, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) has said, to the retirement planning needs of America's workers. Let me just talk for a moment about what we are doing here. Last year, as part of the overall tax relief measure, Congress passed this legislation which makes it easier for people to set more aside for their retirement. It increases contribution levels for IRAs, for 401(k)s, for other defined contribution plans. It increases the levels of benefits for defined benefit plans. It also simplifies the pension laws, takes away some of the costs, the burdens, the liabilities to enable small businesses to offer more plans, and it allows for portability so that people can move in a defined contribution context from job to job without having to cash out on their pensions. The need for these provisions is great. Right now, we know there are 70 million Americans, over half the work force, who have no retirement savings whatsoever through their employer, no pension plan of any kind. That is something that is even worse among small businesses, which is where a lot of lower-income, middle-income workers are. Among smaller businesses, those with 25 or fewer employees, only 20 percent offer any kind of pension plan whatsoever. Unbelievably, there has been virtually no growth in pension plan coverage over the past couple of decades. At the same time, the baby boom generation, of which I am part and a lot in this House are, is beginning to retire, and we are finding that those baby boomers do not have adequate savings to be able to live a comfortable retirement, to have that kind of peace of mind and security that comes with having what someone needs through their retirement. In fact, baby boomers have put less than 40 percent aside of what they will need for a good retirement. A major reason for this is because of what this Congress has done over the past couple of decades. Instead of responding to this by helping people save more for their retirement, Congress instead over the past 20 years has made pensions less generous by lowering contribution and benefit levels while making pensions more costly by increasing the burdens, costs and regulations. That has had a very bad impact. Let me give you a specific example. From 1982 to 1994, limits on defined benefit plans were greatly reduced by Congress, and new restrictions were added, primarily for the purpose of generating more revenue, dealing with the deficit, not for pension policy. The effect of that was, as those cutbacks took effect, the number of traditional benefit plans ensured by the PBGC dropped from 114,000 in 1987 to only 38,000 in the year 2000. Anyway that is what this body tried to do last year was to take some steps, some steps, not as big as some would have liked, but some steps in the right direction to begin to reverse these trends and begin to let people save more for their retirement. First, again, we allowed people to put more aside in their own retirement plans, put more aside in their union multiemployer plans, their defined plans, other pensions, IRAs. We moved the IRA contribution, for instance, from $2,000 to $5,000 per year. This year alone you can put another $1,000 in, another 50 percent, $3,000. By the way, the average income of somebody who does an IRA is less than $30,000 a year. So as my colleagues hear the other side today, some Members of the other side talking about how this is primarily going to benefit the rich, remember that statistic. The biggest increase we have is in IRAs. Those who have IRAs on average have less than $30,000 a year in income. We also did a lot in terms of 401(k)s, moving those limits from $10,500 a year to $15,000 a year by 2006. By the way, these provisions only restore the limits to where they would have been back in the 1980s in terms of IRAs if it is adjusted for inflation, or in the case of 401(k)s, we only adjust it back to where they were back in the 1980s, when, incidentally, Republicans were not in control of this House. Secondly, we created these catch-up contributions. It helps workers over 50 to set aside more for their retirement. If someone is 50, we say they should be able to put more aside in their IRA, but, significantly, in their 401(k). This is because we know there are a lot of people out there, again, baby boomers, particularly women who have taken time off to take care of their families, raise their kids, coming back in the work force, who just do not have enough in that retirement security nest egg. We want to encourage them to save more, so we allow for this catch-up. We modernized the pension laws to adapt what we have learned of the realities of an increasingly mobile work force. That is a reality in our country. People move jobs quickly. The old defined benefit model does not work as well as it used to because people do not stay long enough to get the benefit of that. We decreased the vesting from 5 years to 3 years. This is extremely important and already having an enormous impact out there. We had some testimony in the Committee on Ways and Means yesterday at one of our subcommittees about this very fact, that just by changing that vesting helps a lot because a lot of people do not stay around for those 5 years to get vested, but now they stay around for 3 years, they get the benefits of the pension. We also allowed for people to roll over from job to job, plan to plan. For instance, someone is a school teacher and they go into the private sector or vice versa, if someone is a government employee and they go into the private sector. Under the old law, a person could not roll over their defined contribution plan, the 403(b), their 457, 401(k) and vice versa. We allow for that. It is seamless. The gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) who is here on the floor with us is really the author of that part of the legislation, worked hard on that over the years. It has been bipartisan, even nonpartisan. Finally, we made it easier for employers, particularly small businesses, to be able to establish and maintain pension plans, again, by reducing these costs, burdens and liabilities. We did not do everything the small business community wanted. They wanted to get rid of the so-called top-heavy rules altogether, which incidentally President Clinton's Labor Department advisory group on this said we ought to get rid of altogether. They said it is like suspenders and belts, we already have the nondiscrimination testing in place, why do we need the top-heavy rules on top of that. We did not do that. We kept the top-heavy rules in place. We did simplify them somewhat to make it a little bit easier for small business to get into this game. Again, think about the fact here that small businesses are not in this game in the way they should be. Only 20 percent of them are offering pensions now. We know from all the surveys that have been done, it is costs, it is burdens, it is liabilities that they are worried about. So we tried to address this in a way to be able to help people get more pension coverage, and we are seeing benefits. It has only happened this year. So we do not have the data from year end yet, but we do have anecdotal evidence, again as recently as yesterday in the Committee on Ways and Means. We also modernized our pension laws by section 415 of the Tax Code. This is very important to people who are multiemployer plans, including union members who have worked hard. They have come to the point in their career where they need to retire, they suddenly find out that this 100 percent of compensation limit came into effect and kept them from getting the benefits that they deserved. We removed the section 415 limitation. This is extremely important, and it is fair because the way multiemployer plans adjust and calculate when they receive their pension benefits, the rule did not apply fairly to them. So we got rid of 100 percent of comp limit, which is very important. We also got rid of something very important called aggregation limits. We also allowed for early retirement benefits. This is part of our modernization effort. It was consistent with what we did all through the bill, rolling up our sleeves, looking at these plans, trying to simplify them, trying to make more sense for the modern work force, and these provisions are helping working Americans. Seventy-two percent of those making contributions to IRAs again have an income of below $50,000. The average is below $30,000; 77 percent of American workers participating in a pension plan make less than $50,000 a year, and when we expand retirement savings options, we help those workers who need it the most. Again, it passed the House already on a number of occasions, most recently with 407 votes. So if we already passed this bill, why are we on the floor today? Why did I just talk all about all these great benefits that we have already passed into law? Because of the arcane rule in the United States Senate, all of this goes away. Nine years from now it disappears. What would happen if that were to take place? For starters, it make it very difficult, again, for people to plan for their retirement. For example, looking at the chart here, workers can now save, under our IRA provisions, $3,000 a year on their IRA. Under the old law it was $2,000 a year. By 2010, we go up to $5,000 a person can save on their IRA. Remember, these are the lower- and middle-income workers who really need this for their retirement savings. In the year 2011, it would go back to $2,000 a year if we do not extend this permanently. Does that make sense? Who would want to do that in terms of 401(k)s? In 2002, we go from $10,500 to $11,000 a year people can set aside in their 401(k) plan. By the year 2010 it will go to $15,000. Actually, it starts in 2006, but in 2010 it will be $15,000 a year. In 2011 it would go back to $10,500 a year. Again, these limits are not dramatic increases. They barely keep up with inflation the way we do it, and they do not keep up with the limits that were in place back in the 1980s when my friends on the other side of the aisle controlled the Committee on Ways and Means. When they controlled this Congress, they had higher limits than this and reduced them because they wanted to reduce the deficit, and they took it out of pensions. So this is what is going to happen if we do not extend it. Does that make any sense? The catch-up contributions we talked about earlier, again, under the IRAs this year a person gets $500 more to put away if they are over 50. By 2010 they get $1,000 more. In the year 2011, nothing, no catch-up, zero, zip. It is repealed. In 401(k)s, a person gets $1,000 more this year; they get $5,000 more by 2010. If this legislation is not passed, do not extend it, 2011, zero, zip. Very important for people to be able to plan. Very important for small businesses to be able to plan so they can put together something that works for their employees. We will have some data later if people are interested about what small businesses are doing. They are taking advantage of these increases. They are changing their plans to allow people to save more for their retirement. They are doing it because they assume the Congress is going to do this indefinitely. Now they are finding, because of this quirk in the Senate procedures, it may be stopped in 9 years. It does not make any sense. The expiration date, of course, will hit hardest on oldest workers because of these catch-up provisions. So these oldest workers, getting right up to retirement, are suddenly going to find they cannot do the catch-ups. If we fail to act as a Congress, these improvements simply will disappear and people will not have the peace of mind they need for their retirement. Mr. Speaker, that is what the debate is about today. I know the Democrats have a substitute that deals with some other very important issues. I hope we will have a full debate on that when we talk about the substitute. I understand these are important issues on corporate governance, on executive pay; but let us be sure, as a Congress, we stick together on a bipartisan basis to move forward with what we started last year, to reverse this trend in Congress that was encouraging people to get out of the pension business and instead to get people into it so all Americans can save more for their retirement. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp), from the Committee on Ways and Means. (Mr. CAMP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), my distinguished colleague on the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I respond to the gentleman regarding where that data comes from for two reasons: One, as the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and the other side of the aisle has just said, most of the money in this bill actually goes in the IRAs. People on average make less than $30,000 a year, so the numbers could not be right. Second, the gentleman does not understand the purpose of this bill if the gentleman thinks it is all about doing an income distribution. This is about expanding pension savings for low- and moderate-income Americans.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote no on this substitute and yes on the underlying bill. First of all, the substitute, as we said earlier, really has very little to do with what we are talking about here today, which is the retirement security. It deals with corporate governance, it deals with executive compensation, it deals with inversions. It deals with a lot of other issues, but it strays far afield from pension policy and does not relate to the underlying bill that we are trying to make permanent. Second, the House has already considered a number of bills in this regard. I do not know where the gentleman was a month ago when we passed the post-Enron reforms with regard to pensions. It was done on a bipartisan basis. I do not know where he was a month ago when we voted in this House on legislation regarding corporate governance. The Senate has not voted yet, that is correct, but the House has acted. Could we do more? Quite possibly. Maybe we should subject some of these issues to some hearings and some vetting from the public, try to hear from people who, as we did with the pension reforms on the underlying bill, we spent 5 years getting good testimony from all around the country. So we have considered legislation. The one that has worked its way in the substitute are very complex, very far-reaching. Although well- intended, they may have inadvertent consequences that would be just the opposite impact of what we hoped, which is to keep American companies here on our shores. Finally, with regard to the pension provisions, and I think there are three of them as I look at the substitute, two of them relate to reducing the burdens and liabilities that we have in the underlying bill. It takes us back to the bad old days where we were adding more burdens and liabilities. It actually decreases one of the compensation levels to below the amount it was during the 1980s when the Democrats put the limit up. We do not even increase it up to where it was in the 1980s when the Democrats were in control of this House and the Committee on Ways and Means. The other one discourages matching contributions. Why would my colleagues want to do that? We want people who are involved in pensions to have more contributions from the employer into their pension plan. People put money in their 401(k)s, that is great, but the real magic of them is to get that employer contribution so people can actually build up a nest egg for their retirement. Finally, I have heard today that we cannot vote for the underlying bill when we have to vote for the substitute because, as my colleague from Michigan said, we have a fiscal hole that is so deep that we cannot extend this underlying bill and make it permanent. Well, here are the facts. The underlying bill would result in the next 10 years, which is how we judge these things, with $6 billion in additional spending, $6 billion. The substitute would result in $20 billion in additional spending. The substitute is five times as expensive as the underlying bill. So as my colleagues on the other side who have come up time and time again and said my colleagues have got to support the substitute because we are in such a deep fiscal hole, if that is the reason they are concerned about it, vote no on the substitute; vote yes on the underlying bill. The underlying bill again just passed this House on many occasions by strong bipartisan margins, over 400 votes three times; five years of vetting on a totally bipartisan basis. It is not a Republican proposal. It is a bipartisan proposal. It increases the limits, lets everybody save more for their retirement. It lets people move from job to job and take their pension with them. It reduces those costs and burdens and liabilities, and lets small businesses get out there and offer these plans to workers who do not have them now, and those who are where the low-income workers are and the middle-income workers are, we are all trying to help. It is supported across the board by groups from the United States Chamber of Commerce to the Building and Trades Council of the AFL-CIO. They are all watching this vote today. Do my colleagues know why? Because they know this is incredibly important to the retirement security of the American people, and because they know the House has already had this vote. We have already voted to make these underlying retirement security provisions permanent. We have voted a number of times to do that. Every time it has been on a large bipartisan margin, over 400 votes. So anybody who votes no on the underlying bill today will be reversing himself or herself for a vote taken just last year and the year before. My colleagues, the substitute, while well intended, is not the issue before us today. It is retirement security. Let us vote yes on the underlying bill. Let us make it permanent for working Americans who need the help badly, and vote no on this substitute. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, I agree with what the gentleman from Maryland just said, that the numbers of the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) are simply wrong. I do not know where he comes up with them. He does not cite where the numbers are from. We discussed this earlier, 77 percent of those involved in pension plans make less than $50,000 a year. Those who benefit the most make between $15,000 and $50,000. They pay one- third of all Federal income taxes. They get about two-thirds of the benefits under pensions. That is the reality, and that is what we are dealing with. In terms of the so-called small savers provision, the low-income saver provision, the gentleman wants an answer why we took it out. We are not taking anything out. That was not in the bill that was passed by over 400 votes here in the House. It was added by the Senate. Those of us in the House accepted that issue. We believe we ought to try this on an experimental basis to see if we can get more low-income people in through what will be a relatively complicated, but an interesting experiment to see if it works. We set it for 5 years. We keep it in the underlying bill. We do not take it out. It stays in the legislation exactly as it was passed in the House after coming over from the Senate. The gentleman used the phrase ``take out.'' Nothing is taken out here. We put this in the bill for 5 years for a specific reason. Look at the legislative history in the House and Senate. We want to see how it works. We do not have the history on it yet.