Committee Statements

As policymakers, we should be doing everything we can to ensure hardworking men and women have the tools they need to build a financially secure retirement. That’s a goal I have taken very seriously as a member of this committee, and it’s a goal that was very important to me as a small business owner.

Having owned and operated community pharmacies for nearly thirty years, I was very proud to provide retirement plans for my employees. When you’re a small business owner, your employees are like family, and you want what’s best for them. You want to help them build a comfortable future, and when they leave your business, you want them to enjoy the retirement they worked so hard to achieve.

Fortunately, I was able to do that for my employees. I worked with an advisor that I knew and trusted to set up a retirement plan, and as a result, my employees benefited. For me, providing that benefit was an important part of owning a small business, and it’s a priority for many other small business owners as well.

While working with our Democratic colleagues to develop these legislative proposals, Dr. Roe convened a hearing to explore the consequences of the Department of Labor’s fiduciary proposal and discuss the best way to protect affordable retirement advice. At that hearing, we heard from Rachel Doba, a small business owner from Indianapolis who started a civil engineering firm that focuses on local public works projects.

Ms. Doba has a trusted financial advisor who has helped provide retirement security for her 15 employees – who she called her family – as well as for herself. She considers her advisor a part of her team and her employees trust him to provide educational materials that will help the team make sound financial decisions. Ms. Doba explained that those resources are important to her both as an employer and as an individual saving for her own retirement, but she is concerned the department’s proposal puts all of that in jeopardy. And she’s not alone.

She and many employers like her are fearful that complicated and discriminatory new requirements will drive up costs and make it significantly harder – if not impossible – to help their employees plan for retirement. They simply don’t have the time, resources, or expertise to do that without the help of an advisor, so many of them will be forced to stop providing retirement advice to their employees all together. And that’s a big problem.

Small business owners provide hundreds of billions in retirement savings for millions of households. If even a fraction of those small business owners are unable to provide their employees with retirement plans as a result of the department’s flawed proposal, the impact on workers will be significant. Having had the privilege of helping my own employees save for their retirement, I know what cutting off such an important resource could mean for them and their families.

That’s why joining Dr. Roe’s effort to introduce a bipartisan alternative to the department’s proposal was so important to me. These proposals will ensure financial advisors act in their clients’ best interests. They will keep trusted retirement advice affordable for all families planning for retirement. And they will ensure small business owners continue to receive the help they need to provide the retirement plans their employees deserve.

That’s why joining Dr. Roe’s effort to introduce a bipartisan alternative to the department’s proposal was so important to me. These proposals will ensure financial advisors act in their clients’ best interests. They will keep trusted retirement advice affordable for all families planning for retirement. And they will ensure small business owners continue to receive the help they need to provide the retirement plans their employees deserve.