Spending Bill Vote, Likely With Secure Act 2.0, Expected Before Christmas
SIFMA is “optimistic Congress will include several important bipartisan retirement policy changes" in the bill.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday afternoon that an omnibus spending bill must be wrapped up by the end of the week, and industry officials are optimistic that Secure Act 2.0 provisions will be included.
“Much of my focus today, tonight, and tomorrow will remain on getting the omnibus done,” Schumer said Monday afternoon on the Senate floor. “Despite having a little more work to do, the omnibus continues heading in the right direction. We must wrap the whole process up and vote on final passage before the end of the week. It won’t be easy, but we are working hard so we can get it done before the end of the week and be with our families for Christmas.”
Once the omnibus comes before the Senate, Schumer continued, “I’m confident that both sides will find things in it they can enthusiastically support.”
Schumer conceded, however, that the omnibus is “not going to be everything anybody wants, that’s for sure, but it’s far preferable to a CR, which will leave the country high and dry, and it’s certainly preferable to a government shutdown.”
There “is a very good chance that [Secure Act] 2.0 will hitch a ride on the omnibus,” J. Mark Iwry, the head of national retirement policy during the Obama-Biden administration who’s now a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told ThinkAdvisor Monday in an email.
Josh Wilsusen, executive vice president of advocacy for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, added in an email to ThinkAdvisor Monday that SIFMA is “optimistic Congress will include several important bipartisan retirement policy changes in the omnibus package expected to be voted on this week.”
These provisions, Wilsusen continued, “would help enhance the private retirement system and increase retirement savings. We highly support changes that will incentivize small businesses to offer retirement plans, enable older Americans to save more and hold on to their savings longer, and help young people to save while paying off student loan debt.”
Wilsusen added: “It would be a missed opportunity not to move this commonsense policy across the finish line for the sake of American retirement savers.”
Paul Richman, chief government and political affairs officer at the Insured Retirement Institute in Washington, said Monday in an email to ThinkAdvisor that “IRI remains optimistic that the Secure 2.0 retirement provisions will be included in the omnibus appropriations measure, which means Congress will be poised to help millions more workers and retirees with significant improvements to the nation’s private retirement system.”
IRI, Richman added, expects “that the legislation will add billions to the retirement savings for small business workers, part-time workers, employees with student loan debt, military spouses, low-income workers, and others.”