As one of your constituents I'd like you to know that I am seriously concerned about upcoming pension legislation
in both houses of Congress, which could seriously hurt working people in your district, including myself.
As we've seen, profitable companies such as IBM and Verizon are weakening the pension system as much as they legally can.
At this point in time, we in the US need to strengthen ERISA pension protections, not weaken them.

I would like to ask that you ensure the following:
1) Early retirement subsidies, once vested, and especially once being collected, need to be fully protected.

2) Plans that are underfunded need to be fixed by forcing companies to increase their contributions to those plans,
NOT by forcing them to cut benefits to current and future retirees.

3) Do not reduce the size of a lump sum distribution that can be offered in place of a promised annuity
and make sure the promised annuity stays an option.

4) Strengthen plan termination rules so that excess funds have to be used for the sole benefit of plan participants
and cannot be returned to the company or to the corporate executives.

I am happy that neither the house or the senate bill retroactively legalizes cash balance conversions.
I would be quite upset if I lost a large share of the Cooper settlement because Congress retroactively legalized what IBM did.
If Congress must legalize cash balance conversions, they should include all of the protections
for older employees that are in the senate bill.

Thank you for your time and attention to this critical matter.