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Saturday, Mar. 2, 2002

Global Crossing and Enron, giant companies that collapsed and left thousands of workers holding worthless paper, were not singled out, but there was no mistaking who he was referring to in remarks promoting his retirement security agenda.

"I ... am deeply concerned about pension plan abuse," Bush told workers at a family-owned printing company. "I'm worried about what's taken place on the – that we've seen in the newspapers here in America.

"First of all, there's such a thing as corporate responsibility. Corporate America has a responsibility to disclose all the assets and liabilities of their companies. As well, we need to make sure that workers don't lose everything if their company were to fail.

"In other words, there needs to be some safeguards in some of these 401(k) plans, particularly as it relates to publicly traded companies," he said.

Enron, which had connections to Bush and Clinton administration officials and contributed to Republican and Democrat candidates, is the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. business history after suspect deals kept some $1 billion in debt off the company's books. Global Crossing, which also gave heavily to Democrats and Republicans and had ties to both administrations, is the fourth largest bankruptcy in history.

While top executives were able to unload their company shares ahead of the collapse, average workers were not allowed to do so under stipulations of their 401(k) retirement plans.

Bush said Friday employees should be able to sell any stock their company contributes to their retirement plan after participating for three years.

"If there's a blackout period in which employees can't conduct transactions, first, an executive shouldn't be able to sell if the employee can't sell," he added. "What's good for the executive ought to be good for the employees in America.

"If the boss sells, so should everybody else. And if everybody else can't sell, the boss doesn't get to sell."

Bush also called on Congress to pass retirement security provisions that would protect employers who make available to workers third-party advisers on investments from "junk lawsuits."

"We've got too many lawsuits in our society to begin with," he said. "It doesn't make any sense to force workers not to be able to have good advice because somebody's afraid of getting sued. And so it seems to me it makes sense for Congress to help reform pension laws by making it easier for people ... to get good advice for the workers without fear of some junk lawsuit or some throwaway lawsuit."

Pro-choice on Social Security

The president is pro-choice on letting workers invest a small part of their Social Security accounts and tax incentives to help smaller businesses set up 401(k) plans for employees.

"The whole point is this: We ought to do everything we can in Washington to make sure people own a piece of the future," he said.

While in Iowa, Bush also attended a state GOP fundraiser. Earlier in the week he helped raise money for Elizabeth Dole, who is seeking to clinch the Republic nomination to replace retiring Sen. Jesse Helms.

Copyright 2002 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Enron

George W. Bush

Global Crossing Scandal

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