WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) today went to the House floor to urge passage of H.J. Res. 88, disapproving of the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to the definition of the term “fiduciary.”
Remarks:
“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank my friend from Tennessee for bringing this legislation forward. Mr. Speaker, what we’re trying to do here is help people and encourage more savings.
“401-k plans are so good at making it easy for people to save money for their retirement. Frankly, we should be doing as much as we can here in Washington to make it even easier, to encourage more people to save for their retirement. But here comes the Department of Labor with this massive document to define one word – what the term fiduciary means. This is going to make it dramatically harder for Americans to save money for their retirement.
“Anybody who thinks this massive document defining the ability for people to save money is going to make it easier or make it less costly to save money doesn’t understand just how many teams of lawyers will be employed to go and try to figure out what this means. What it will mean, Mr. Speaker, is that the cost for hardworking taxpayers to go and put more money in their retirement is going to go up dramatically. It also means – and you want to talk about a perverse incentive – this massive rule actually imposes even more burdens on small businesses than it does on large businesses, so the very engine of our economy, small businesses, will literally have to face the question of whether or not they can afford to provide 401-k services to their employees.
“Employees love the ability to have a 401-k. Employees also move around a lot from job to job and enjoy the ability to roll over their 401-k. This massive rule, actually makes it nearly impossible for people to roll over their 401-k by dramatically increasing the cost. Why would you want to do that?
“What we’re trying to do here is say, ‘go back to the drawing board.’ This rule makes no sense. This rule actually hurts the ability for hardworking taxpayers to save money for their retirement – the exact opposite thing the federal government should be doing.
“I applaud my friend from Tennessee for bringing this forward, and I urge adoption.”