Pension Issues Before the Congress
Representative Earl Pomeroy (D-ND),
member of the House Ways and Means Committee

Rep. Pomeroy spoke to the NCPERS Congressional breakfast on Wednesday morning, after which the attendees spent time on Capitol Hill visiting their members of Congress. 

Pomeroy complimented those in attendance for their work as public pension plan trustees and administrators, praising the attributes of public sector plans. He expressed his strong support for defined benefit plans that also provide a cost-of-living adjustment.

He criticized the assault on public plans by right-wing groups that want to destroy these plans. He specifically mentioned Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who has publicly advocated destroying public plans because of the power and influence they have in the market place.  Pomeroy said the way to stop these assaults was to let plan participants know what valuable benefits they have and to call on our friends to support us and our plans.

Pomeroy criticized the new retirement proposals announced by the Bush administration as a "back door approach to destroy long-term funding and resources" for the federal government. He stated that the savings' rate was already too low and these new retirement proposals would discourage savings by middle class workers.  "The costs of these proposals are low in the first five years, but skyrocket in the later years," stated Pomeroy.  This violates President Bush's claim he does not want to burden future generations with the costs of the current generation. Pomeroy stated that the new retirement proposals would allow wealthy individuals to pass on to their heirs billions of dollars without taxation.  Such legislation would not only hurt the federal government, but would also devastate state and local governments that are currently facing huge budget shortfalls.

Rep. Pomeroy just introduced a bill providing for greater pension portability of all workers, including public employees.  His bill, HR 518, has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. NCPERS supports this bill. 

Rep. Pomeroy was elected to the House of Representatives in 1992 and currently serves on the House Ways and Means Committee.  Previously, he was State Insurance Commissioner for North Dakota and sat on the pension board.