Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on February 2019--Veto

Floor Speech

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Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of nearly 25,000 workers and retirees in Wisconsin who have paid into the Central States Pension Fund. More than 4 years ago, thousands of Wisconsinites started receiving letters in the mail telling them that their pensions--which they had worked for, planned on, and earned--would not be paid out in full as was promised to them.

Instead, those letters said their pensions would be slashed by 50 percent, 60 percent, or sometimes 70 percent. Since then, those retirees have organized. They have organized at home. They have called on their Members of Congress. They have come to Washington countless times to remind us of the promises that were made when they earned their pensions and to fight for a solution to the pending crisis.

I have been proud to work side-by-side with these Wisconsin workers and retirees, and with my colleague Senator Brown to introduce the Butch Lewis Act.

This legislation will put failing multiemployer pension plans, including Central States, back on solid ground, and it does so without cutting the pensions that retirees have earned. It does so without cutting the pensions retirees have earned. This is not just good policy for workers and retirees because putting these pensions back on strong footing would also protect the small businesses that employed them from the threat of closing their doors if these plans are allowed to fail.

Compounding this looming crisis is the reality that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, known as the PBGC--the government's insurance for multiemployer pension plans like Central States--is on its own path to insolvency by 2025. This week, I reintroduced legislation to help address the financial challenges of the PBGC. The Pension Stability Act would add funding to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's multiemployer program by imposing a fee on financial firms convicted of financial crimes.

This weekend, I was in Endeavor, WI, with retirees who meet once a month at the fire station to update one another on our progress here in Washington. I have been to many, many such meetings like that across the State. In the months since the House passed the Butch Lewis Act, there hasn't been much other progress to speak of. The Senate hasn't taken up the bill, no other proposals have been offered, and all the while, retirees and workers in the Central States Pension Fund continue to doubt their retirement security.

Today, I am asking my colleagues in the Senate to join me and pass my Pension Stability Act and to help generate new revenue to help safeguard the retirement security of millions of Americans. If Washington does not act, workers and retirees will face massive cuts to the pensions they have earned over decades of hard work. I have come to the floor many times to remind this body about the retirees--some of whom stand to lose more than 50 percent of their pensions--and still, nothing has been done. So I am here once again to remind my colleagues that this is about a promise that must be kept.

2598 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, my message to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle today is simple: If you will continue to object to my proposal to help shore up the PBGC and the proposals from me and other Democratic colleagues to put failing multiemployer pensions back on solid ground, then please bring up your own plans. Bring your ideas to the table, and let's work together to solve this pension crisis and protect the retirement security of Americans because just objecting to our plans is not an option for the 25,000 workers and retirees I am representing here today. Doing nothing is not an option. If we don't act, we will be breaking a promise made to 1.5 million workers and retirees nationwide. Pension promises must be kept.

Once again, I will say Washington needs to act, and we need to do it now.

I yield back.

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