President Biden vetoed a bill that would have jeopardized the retirement savings of millions of Americans, supported by Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Subscribe to our newsletter:
The White House tweeted Biden explaining his first veto:
I just vetoed my first bill.
This bill would risk your retirement savings by making it illegal to consider risk factors that MAGA House Republicans don’t like.
Your plan manager should be able to protect your hard-earned savings — whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene likes it or not. pic.twitter.com/PxuoJBdEee
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 20, 2023
Biden said in his veto message to the House of Representatives:
I hereby pass, without my consent, HJ Res. 30, a resolution that would disapprove of the Labor Department’s final rule entitled “Crudeness and Loyalty in the Selection of Plan Investments and the Exercise of Shareholder Rights.”
The Labor Department’s final rule protects the hard-earned life savings and pensions of tens of millions of workers and retirees across the country. It enables pension plan trustees to make fully informed investment decisions by considering all relevant factors that could affect a potential investment, while ensuring that the investment decisions made by pension plan trustees maximize the financial returns for retirees.
There is ample evidence that environmental, social and governance factors can have a significant impact on markets, industries and companies. But the Republican-led resolution would force pension administrators to ignore these relevant risk factors, flout free market principles and jeopardize the life savings of working families and retirees. In fact, this decision would prevent pension plan trustees from considering factors such as the physical risks of climate change and poor corporate governance that could impact investment returns.
Pension plan trustees should be able to consider every factor that will maximize financial returns for retirees across the country. That’s not controversial – that’s common sense.
Rep. Greene (R-GA) offered a very weak answer:
Nobody has jeopardized our retirement more than you, Joe.
American families cannot rely on checks from China to pay for their rent and groceries like your family does. https://t.co/rE9I4NSm18
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) March 20, 2023
Biden’s veto came the same day the UN climate report found the world was on the brink of catastrophic warming.
President Biden was right. It is common sense that financial planners should be able to take climate change and environmental concerns into account when making investment decisions.
Biden’s veto will save retirement accounts that Republicans like Greene wanted to destroy to score political points against “wakeism,” whatever that is. Biden named Greene in his tweet as his veto serves as a reminder that only Biden and the Democrats have the best interests of the American people in mind.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House press pool and congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His thesis focused on public policy with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and professional memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association
Comments are closed.