The following are excerpts from the Tuesday, May 9, 1995, Press Conference
for the introduction of the Pension Protection Act of 1995 (H.R. 1594):

      "Let me just say that I very strongly support the Pension Protection Act, and that I commend Congressman Saxton for his efforts because there are two things that are going on here that are very, very important. The first is, by definition, what the Clinton Administration is trying to do will lower the income and increase the risk to people who work and save all their lives.

      "I say 'by definition' because by inserting a non-economic goal in how you invest pension funds, you're by definition lowing the return on the investments, and your by definition increasing the risk. Otherwise, you would be the investment that would normally be made without government direction. So the first thing people need to understand, you've got the Clinton Administration which is deliberately increasing the risk to America's private pension funds and to the people who rely on them, and the Clinton Administration is deliberately lowering the return for pensioners from their own money -- which gets me to my second point.

      "This is another classic example of pro-big government, tax and spend liberals trying to find a back door way to achieve what they can't get by coming in the front door. They can no longer go to the country and say, 'government works, let us raise your taxes.'

      "So the Walter Mondale strategy is gone. They can't say, you really are getting a great buy out of the government, we want to take more out of your wallet. So what they are now saying is, 'let us do by regulation, what you will not allow us do by taxation'. And their basically replacing taxation with regulation as a method of increasing their control. So what they are now saying is this, 'you work all your life, you create a pension so you can retire, your pension fund has hired somebody whose job is to keep your money safe and grow it in a way that you'll have more money.

      "They now want to take your money and have Robert Reich decide how he will risk your pension. Now this is in effect, exactly why people rebel against Clinton, because this is in effect taxation without representation. What you're going to have is, the Clinton Administration gets to gamble on losing your pension money, so that they can pay off their allies so they can get re-elected -- even if it means you will have a poorer retirement with less take home pay.

      "The Pension Protection Act, under Congressman Saxton's leadership, will protect every working American who hopes to retire with a private pension. It is a vital bill, I look forward to the hearings, and I am confident that we will be able to bring it to the floor and have a vote on it.

      "And I commend you Jim for the work you are doing. Thank you Jim very much."

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