Text 2240, 327 rader
Skriven 2006-03-02 23:33:08 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (060302f) for Thu, 2006 Mar 2
===================================================
===========================================================================
Vice President's Remarks at the 2006 Saver Summit
===========================================================================

For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
March 2, 2006

Vice President's Remarks at the 2006 Saver Summit
The Willard Hotel
Washington, D.C.



9:31 A.M. EST

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I appreciate the chance to be here
today. And I want to thank Assistant Secretary Combs for her introduction.
It's good to be with all of you; and to those visiting from out of town,
obviously, we want to welcome you to the Nation's Capital.

I imagine I was invited to speak at this summit on retirement savings for
one of two reasons. Either it's because I just turned 65 -- (laughter) --
or because you wanted to bring some charisma to these proceedings.
(Laughter.)

The real reason, of course, is that the President is unable to attend,
because of his travels to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. But it's a
pleasure to be here on his behalf, and I bring his greetings to all of you,
along with his appreciation for your willingness to attend this summit.

And I want to thank the good people of the Department of Labor for
organizing the event. My good friend Elaine Chao, my Cabinet colleague,
does a superb job. And I know she places great store by the work that all
of you do at these conferences.

I also want to thank the members of Congress, and those representing
executive departments and agencies for participating in the effort, as well
as the men and women who have made presentations. I'm glad you are
educating the public about the tremendous value of personal savings for
retirement. And by participating this week, all of you have made a very
useful contribution to the national interest.

Today, the average American can expect to live well beyond his or her
working years. And with the benefits of modern medicine -- and all we've
learned about prevention and healthy living -- retirement is increasingly
becoming a period of tremendous activity and vigor.

As individuals, we have more and more reasons to consider retirement as
something to look forward to. Come to think of it, I know some folks who
probably look forward to seeing me retire. (Laughter.) And because we're a
nation that always focuses on the future, we want to make sure that as many
citizens as possible enjoy independence and financial security in their
retirement years -- with personal savings and a nest egg to call their own;
a retirement safety net that never breaks down; and reliable pension plans.
And these goals set an agenda for our country.

The President and I are strongly committed to building an ownership society
in the United States. From the beginning of our administration, we've set
out to help more Americans have a chance to own a house, a small business,
a health care plan, and a retirement plan. In all of these areas, ownership
is the path to opportunity, greater independence, and more control over
your own life. Everyone deserves a chance to live the American Dream, to
build up wealth of their own, and to have assets for retirement that
government can never take away.

The American Dream begins with saving money, and that should begin on the
very first day of work. The power of compound interest is even greater when
people start saving early. Yet a lot of American families live paycheck to
paycheck -- often finding, as the saying goes, "too much month at the end
of the money."

And this underscores one of our fundamental obligations in Washington: to
be good stewards of the taxpayer's dollar, to keep the federal government's
claim on workers' paychecks as low as possible.

This requires, first of all, that we keep a close eye on federal spending.
Every year of our administration, we've reduced the growth of non-security
discretionary spending. This year the President's budget will reduce it
again, and trim or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing
poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. By passing these reforms,
we'll save the American taxpayer another $14 billion next year -- and stay
on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009.

We're pleased as well that members of Congress are working on earmark
reform -- because the federal budget forces the American taxpayer to pay
for too many expensive special interest projects. And the elected branches
of government can resolve this problem together, if Congress does the right
thing and passes the line-item veto.

We have a duty, as well, to keep the tax burden under control -- and here
again we've made good progress over the last five years. Working with
Congress, we reduced taxes for everyone who pays income taxes -- leaving
more money in the hands of workers and families and giving small businesses
more resources to expand and to hire. We increased the tax incentives for
small businesses to invest in new equipment, and we cut the taxes on
dividends and capital gains. And because a lifetime of thrift and hard work
should not be penalized at the end, we also began phasing out the federal
death tax.

The tax relief of the last several years has had an enormous positive
impact on the economy -- making the recession one of the shortest and
shallowest ever, and setting the nation on a path of healthy, vigorous
economic growth. We've added over 300,000 jobs in the last two months and
over 4.7 million jobs since August of '03. The unemployment rate is now 4.7
percent, its lowest level since July of '01, and well below the average
unemployment rate for the 1970s, 1980s, and the 1990s. America's economy
grew at 3.2 percent in 2005, and it has been growing at a healthy rate for
more than two years. Productivity is high, inflation is contained, consumer
confidence remains strong. More Americans now own their homes than at any
time in our nation's history.

The goal of tax relief was to make this nation more prosperous -- thereby
adding new jobs, new opportunities for upward mobility and wealth creation,
and, ultimately, higher revenues for the Treasury to support national
priorities. And to keep our nation on this hopeful path, Congress should
make tax relief permanent instead of raising taxes on American families.

Thanks to the effects of tax relief and a growing economy, real after-tax
income in the United States has grown by over 8 percent per person since
'01 -- making it easier for working people to put away more money away for
retirement. In the same period, we've taken specific steps to encourage
personal savings. In our first term, we raised the contribution limits for
IRAs and 401(k)'s, changed the law to permit greater catch-up contributions
for people age 50 and over, and sped up the vesting process for employer
contributions to 401(k)'s.

Still, the tax code has too many provisions that, at worst, discourage
savings -- and, at best, confuse the taxpayer about the available
incentives to save. So the President is asking Congress to encourage the
savings with three simplified tax-free savings accounts for all Americans.

The first, retirement savings accounts, would replace a complicated mix of
retirement savings incentives in the code today, and all the varied rules
and regulations that go with them. The second, employer retirement savings
accounts, simplify the savings opportunities that workers have through
their employers. And the third, lifetime savings accounts, would, for the
first time, let a person save money tax-free for any purpose -- including
job training, college tuition, down payment on a house, a car, or
retirement.

There's no question that through sound policies, we can encourage the habit
of savings. We can do more to protect savings as well -- including
protecting families against the risk of unexpected medical costs. A health
crisis should not have to mean a financial crisis, so we must make sure
that more working Americans have access to affordable health coverage.

One effective reform, which the President signed into law as part of the
Medicare Reform Act, is the health savings account, or HSA. HSA's help
control cost by allowing businesses or workers to buy low-cost insurance
policies for catastrophic events and then save, tax-free, for their
routine, out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Already millions of Americans have signed up for HSA's, and are enjoying
the benefit of more affordable health insurance coverage. This year, the
President is asking Congress to strengthen HSA's in the context of a broad
agenda for health care reform. We want to make all health insurance --
including HSA insurance -- more accessible, by allowing workers to buy
health coverage from out-of-state insurers. We'll give extra financial help
to low-income Americans so they can buy HSA insurance, and we want to raise
the HSA contribution limits for everyone. And we want to do more to make
the coverage portable, so workers can switch jobs without having to worry
about losing their health insurance.

By their nature, health savings accounts can be a significant help in a
person's retirement years. This is because annual contributions, by the
employer, the employee, or both -- are allowed to accumulate. With an HSA,
the account holder doesn't have to spend all the money by the end of the
year; instead, the account can grow, year after year. An HSA is a personal
asset and belongs to the account holder all of his or her life -- so the
money goes with them when they change jobs or when they retire, and
anything not spent can also be passed along to the next generation.

As we work to encourage long-term savings throughout our society, those of
us in public office also have a continuing duty to strengthen the
foundations of Social Security.

The Social Security system has been in steady service, uninterrupted, for
more than 70 years. It has fulfilled the promise announced by President
Franklin Roosevelt -- that of providing vital income to millions of
seniors, and assuring generations of workers that their retirement years
will have some decent measure of security. For today's generation of senior
citizens, the system is strong and fiscally sound. But younger workers are
understandably concerned about whether Social Security will be around for
them when they need it. It's important to remember -- gathered, as we are,
at a summit on retirement savings -- that the Social Security trust fund is
not a savings system. It is a pay-as-you-go system, in which the benefits
of current retirees come directly from the payroll taxes of current
workers. The problem is simple to state: With an aging population, and a
steadily falling ratio of workers to retirees, the system is on a course to
eventual bankruptcy.

At present, Social Security operates with a substantial cash surplus. But
very soon, the greatest test of the Social Security system will be upon us.
This year, the first of millions of baby boomers turn 60 -- and they look
forward to long, active, and healthy lives. And the approaching retirement
of the baby boom generation will put unprecedented strains on the federal
government -- not just for Social Security outlays, but for other
entitlements, as well.

Today, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for 40 percent of the
entire federal budget -- but they are growing faster than the economy --
and are putting more and more pressure on the federal budget. In 10 years'
time, these programs will account for 50 percent -- and by 2030, spending
for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone -- just those three
programs -- will be almost 60 percent of the entire federal budget. If we
do nothing future Congresses will face impossible choices -- ruinous tax
increases, immense deficits, or deep cuts in every other category of
federal spending.

The year 2030 may seem like a long way off, and in politics there is always
a temptation to kick the can down the road -- hoping that long-term
problems might simply disappear, or leaving them for someone else to worry
about. But the budget strain caused by our entitlement problems has already
begun and as the President has said many times, he ran for President to
confront big challenges, not to pass them along to future Presidents and
future Congresses.

There will always be a wagonload of excuses for ignoring the problem of
entitlements. But Americans have a right to expect more out of the nation's
leaders, especially when it comes to Social Security and other defining
national promises. The longer we wait to address the coming crisis, the
more excuses that are made for inaction, the more difficult and expensive
the job will eventually be.

So the President is asking Congress to join him in creating a commission to
examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid. The commission must be bipartisan, and it must
include members of Congress of both parties. All of us -- Republicans and
Democrats alike -- owe it to the people we are honored to serve to put
aside partisan politics, to work together, and to find a way to solve this
problem.

All of our citizens deserve to know that their hard work will always be
rewarded, and that the institutions they depend on will always hold up
their end of the bargain. That goes not just for Social Security and
Medicare, but for traditional pensions in the private sector, as well. Even
though our economy is changing, a great many Americans still rely on these
pensions for security in their retirement years. The problem today is that
the law permits companies to technically follow the pension rules, without
actually funding the pledges that have been made to workers. It's a flawed
system -- and the result is that American workers' pensions are now under
funded by billions of dollars.

Even worse, current law also makes it difficult for workers to know whether
their pensions are in trouble. Pension plans have been portrayed as "fully
funded" just before they terminate and default on many promised benefits.
When that happens, obviously, retirees have found themselves with a lot
less money in old age than they expected.

It's important for those of us in Washington making policy to understand
the practical, real-world effects of the decisions we make. Imagine that
you were about to retire after a lifetime of hard work. Your company had
promised you a fixed sum per month from your pension, and you had a plan to
meet your expenses in old age with that money. Now imagine that after years
of hearing these promises from your employer -- and with no warning at all,
just days before you retire -- you see your pension cut drastically, maybe
even cut in half. You have little remaining earnings capacity, and the
money you thought you could count on is suddenly reduced to a fraction of
what you'd expected. You'd be pretty mad about it, and worried, too.

This sort of nightmare has happened to all too many Americans. This is why
the President has been crystal clear on the issue of pension reform -- if
you put in your hours, and do your part, your company should make -- your
promised pension will be there for you when you retire.

The President has asked Congress to address these problems with strong,
timely, and sensible reforms. These reforms embrace a fundamental
principle: federal law should require that pension promises, once made, are
kept. Under the President's proposal, companies would be required to
accurately determine and to report the financial status of their pension
plans -- both their assets and their liabilities -- and to make sure they
will be in a position to fulfill their commitments to their workers.
Companies that under-fund their pensions would be given seven years to
catch up and get into a position where they can assure employees that
they've taken all the necessary steps to safeguard those pensions.

Some have said that the President's proposed reforms are too tough -- and
they offer alternatives that would actually weaken the current funding
rules. Congress will soon finalize pension legislation, and that
legislation must be improved before it goes to the President for his
signature. Our experts have studied the Congressional proposals carefully
and they are convinced that unless the bills are strengthened, there will
be an even greater risk that workers will lose benefits, and that taxpayers
will be asked to bail out the pension insurance system. The President has
made clear that he will not sign a bill that weakens pension funding for
American workers. Citizens who work a lifetime for their pensions deserve
to know that their company will meet those promises, and that their elected
representatives are on their side.

On all of the issues I've touched upon today -- from tax cut permanence and
savings incentives, to effective entitlement reform, to pension protection,
the sooner we take action, the better. And the best hope for lasting
results is to look past the partisan divide and to find common ground.
We're in a political business, and it's no surprise to encounter strong
views and tough arguments. And we should not expect any of the work to be
easy. But I hope we will find a spirit of bipartisanship in the months
ahead, and the President and I are committed to reaching out and doing
everything we can to make consensus possible.

President Kennedy often spoke of the importance of thinking and acting not
just for the moment, but for the good of generations to come. He told the
story of a man who asked his gardener to plant a tree for him. The gardener
protested, saying it was a slow-growing tree and wouldn't mature for a
hundred years. The man replied, "In that case there is no time to lose,
plant it this afternoon." (Laughter.)

When we speak of matters having a lengthy time horizon -- whether it's
entitlement reform, or the future retirement concerns of people still in
the prime of life -- it's not always easy to make the case for urgent
action. But all of you are here today because you know how vital it really
is to think about the long term.

And all of us share the confidence that if we choose wisely, we can have a
positive impact on the lives of Americans for many decades to come --
helping millions of seniors, today and tomorrow, find the dignity, the
security, and the peace of mind they deserve.

Thank you very much.

END 9:49 A.M. EST

===========================================================================
Return to this article at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060302-15.html

 * Origin: (1:3634/12)