It has long been said the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes. Automatic enrollment for insurance of 401k loans would add an additional certainty. Fewer Americans would suffer the unnecessary loss of retirement savings due to unanticipated and untimely misfortune in an already stressful time of need.
Never far from my thoughts are memories of being a little girl in Queens, N.Y., our family of five crowded in a small one-bedroom apartment, struggling to learn English and survive a new life in a new country, America. We humbly and gratefully still recall the kindnesses shown by strangers and neighbors who became new friends.
Smoot and Hawley ginned up The Tariff Act of 1930 to get America back to work after the Stock Market Crash of '29. Instead, it destroyed trade so effectively that by 1932, American exports to Europe were just a third of what they had been in 1929. World trade fell two-thirds as other nations retaliated. Jobs evaporated.
We need long-term tax reform that promotes private sector job creation. And legislated mandates that kill jobs by raising the cost of payrolls need to be eliminated.
As I looked up at the Statue of Liberty, I thought at that time, 'What a wonderful country.'
When my mother, sisters and I arrived on the shores of America when I was 8 years old, the boat on which we came, a freighter, passed the Statue of Liberty.
Employers should overcome a myopic quarterly earnings posture and focus on long-term strategies for growth that include investing in their own skills-training efforts to enable a broader pool of applicants.
We're a robust democracy here. That's the wonderful thing about this country.
Our private-sector work force is the most industrious, innovative, productive, and ambitious in the world.
401k savings accounts have become so important in the landscape of retirement planning that their security and expansion became a top priority in formulating and implementing the Pension Protection Act of 2006 that was enacted during my tenure as the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
The ingenuity and creativity of the private sector is essential to meeting American's needs for a skilled work force.
Activists have every right to espouse their views of utopia.
Even when America's economy has been by all measures healthy and the unemployment rate low, some businesses suffer or fail and lay off workers. But nearly always, a simultaneous and even greater burst of new jobs has been created to offset the jobs lost - millions of new jobs every year.
We have many rules and regulations that can be sometimes confusing and complicated. By reaching out to the employer community and educating them on what their responsibilities and obligations are to their work force, that, along, with strong enforcement, is the best way to protect workers.
Those memories of living in a developing nation are part of who I am today and give me a profound understanding of the challenges of economic development - an understanding which will make my tenure as Peace Corps director, I hope, a very special one.
Three years after the four deepest previous recessions began - in 1953, 1957, 1973 and 1981 - employment was on average 4.7% higher than the pre-recession peak.
It's not coincidental that America's vigorous recovery in the early 1980s was led by a president who worked hard to unshackle growth in the private sector.
I am not seeking any position in a Dole Administration.
Though the National Bureau of Economic Research deemed the recession to have ended in June 2009, to most Americans, that conclusion seems not to square with reality.
The expenses of complying with Washington's torrent of mandates and regulatory overreach are costing American workers jobs and income growth.
