madam speaker , i appreciate my friend and colleague from california 's passion , even when he is wrong and overstates his case . 
the comparison to iraq is just such an egregious misrepresentation of american democracy to anybody in the world who is watching this . 
we sat in the education committee for days , into the late hours of the night taking amendment after amendment . 
they lost the amendments . 
that does not mean democracy does not work . 
it means that we spent in the areas of the subcommittee and the committee working this for years , working through committee and bringing the document to the floor with many compromises in it . 
now , i share some of the concerns of my colleague from california , because i have had a frustration in watching people who work their whole life , see their pensions reduced or eliminated at the time some of the executives have enriched themselves . 
and i supported this bill . 
i supported this bill because long term it will help the pension guaranty corporation , but short term our goal has to be how are these companies not going to go into bankruptcy ? 
how can we make sure that they can function , have their pension funds there and avoid the problem , and then long term stabilize the guaranty corporation ? 
secondly , as a representative of the number one manufacturing district in america , i have more manufacturing jobs and percentage of the work force in my district in manufacturing than any other , i was very concerned about some of the provisions and how this might relate to gm . 
i very much appreciate the leadership of chairman boehner in our committee of working first the process through so that people have the hopes of pension . 
i mean , we all understand the basic principle here . 
we have the same problem in social security . 
we are more underfunded , quite frankly , than private areas . 
we have this in medicare . 
we have this in any savings program where we assumed there was going to be a huge work force paying in and now it is a declining work force paying into a huge retirement population . 
how do we work this through ? 
this bill is an chairmen boehner and chairman thomas have fixed this . 
this is now supported by the uaw and by gm . 
that is a pretty big accomplishment , to have a pension bill supported by the uaw and gm , and i want to commend the leadership of the education committee , chairman boehner and the chairman of the ways and means committee for working out this critical thing so that management does not get crippled in their ability to put funds in to strengthen these pensions . 
at the same time , people who are 50 , 55 , already retired , who do not have the ability to adjust their pensions will not get it arbitrarily frozen . 
and i think this is a great compromise that had hours and hours and days and days of work on this , and it is an example of how democracy works , not how it does not work . 
madam speaker , i rise today to commend the distinguished chairman of the education and workforce committee for putting together a well-balanced bill to reform our nation 's outdated pension laws . 
putting this bill together has been a long and difficult process , and the chairman should be commended for his perseverance and diligence . 
our nation 's pension laws have not undergone comprehensive reform for over 30 years . 
unfortunately , the recent examples of united airlines and bethlehem steel show that this system is broken . 
we can not have a situation where companies continually underfund their pension plans , go bankrupt , and then transfer their pensions to the pbgc . 
workers lose the money they were depending on for retirement , and american taxpayers are expected to pick up the slack for companies ' irresponsibility . 
h.r. 2830 will help ensure that workers ' pensions are better funded . 
it changes current law to require plans to be 100 percent funded . 
if plans are underfunded , this bill will force companies to make up their shortfall in 7 years . 
h.r. 2830 will also help stabilize the pbgc by raising the premiums companies pay for the pbgc 's protection . 
further , by requiring employers that terminate their pensions in bankruptcy to pay an annual premium of $ 1 , 250 per participant to the pbgc for the 3 years after they emerge from bankruptcy , this bill makes terminating pension plans a less attractive option for employers . 
companies who want to dump their pensions to escape bankruptcy and raise their bottom line will have a tougher time doing so . 
furthermore , the pension protection act will help stop the unacceptable practice of labor and management negotiating for pension benefits that both sides know are unaffordable . 
if a pension plan is underfunded , it will not be able to increase benefits or pay shutdown benefits unless it pays for such benefits immediately . 
i would also like to commend chairman boehner for his efforts this week to reach an agreement with the united auto workers union over their concerns with the bill . 
mr. chairman , i have the largest manufacturing district in the country , and many union members let me know their concerns with this bill in its original form . 
unfortunately , this bill would have allowed some companies to freeze their employees ' pension benefits and limit accruals -- even if they had the money to fund them . 
the agreement that chairman boehner reached with the uaw requires companies to use all the money in their plan before they can freeze benefits and limit accruals . 
this will prevent companies from gaming their funded status in order to deliberately trigger these benefit restrictions . 
again , i thank chairman boehner for his hard work writing a bill supported by such a broad coalition of both labor and management groups , and urge my colleagues to support it . 
