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JS-4125
Thank you, Javier, for that kind introduction.
Good afternoon. I am very pleased to be here with you today, and to have had the opportunity to hear the results of this new Hispanic Market Study. I am sure everyone in the financial education community will gain new knowledge and benefit from it.
I have the distinct honor and privilege of serving as the 42 nd Treasurer of the United States as part of President Bush's and Secretary Snow's team as well as the whole Treasury team.
First, I would like to commend today's event organizers for convening such a distinguished group of panelists, each committed to improving financial education in the United States. It is heartening to note that more and more attention is being directed toward improving financial education through improved resources, services and products, as well as improved methods of delivery, for all people of this country, and in particular for the U.S. Latino community.
The theme of today's event protect the financial future of U.S. Hispanics is incredibly important to individuals and to the U.S. and our growing economy as a whole. I look forward to hearing from each of today's panelists on the topic of how to better serve the changing needs of the growing U.S. Hispanic community.
We at Treasury are committed to improving financial education for all people, and understand that maintaining an open discussion about this issue is one important way to improve our efforts. That is why I am so glad to share this opportunity with the people here today. I am always truly happy about opportunities such as this one, where folks like you get together - people who really are focused, impassioned and stand ready to find ways to help improve the lives of those they serve in a variety of capacities.
I am also especially pleased that this gathering provides an important opportunity to highlight just how crucial it is for the government, nonprofit, private and public sectors to continue to work together toward building our knowledge about the personal finance needs of the people of this country, particularly in the context of our growing economy. In this instance, we gather today to learn about important challenges to improving financial education in the Latino community.
What I would like to do is to share some thoughts with you, concentrating on three major areas:
1) Financial Education: federal efforts, specifically Treasury's work, in helping improve financial education across the country;
2) Health Savings Accounts: the importance of saving and planning for the future through vehicles such as Health Savings Accounts;
3) Opportunities for Success in a Growing Economy: a burgeoning economy such as ours provides the Latino community with opportunities for new jobs and wealth creation, which must be safeguarded and protected.
FINANCIAL EDUCATION
First, I would like to start off by highlighting some of the great work that we are engaged in at Treasury, and really the whole federal government. At Treasury, we are working hard to provide our citizens with the right tools that can teach them how to make sound financial decisions, as well as how to build a nest-egg for the future.
For instance, Treasury currently leads the efforts of a commission comprised of twenty federal agencies the Financial Literacy and Education Commission to improve financial literacy for people across the country. At Treasury, we understand that acquiring knowledge, and in particular personal financial savvy, is crucial to helping improve individual lives. Not only that, it is also important to helping our economy to continue to thrive.
Noting the importance of enhancing access to tools that can help people make wiser financial decisions, in December 2003, the President signed legislation establishing this commission.
As part of its work, the Commission in 2004 launched a national financial education web site and national toll-free hotline: www.mymoney.gov and 1-888-mymoney.
I encourage you to visit mymoney.gov. The information provided on that site is available in English and Spanish. The site has resources on a whole host of personal finance topics from the federal government including: budgeting, taxes, credit, financial planning, paying for education, retirement planning and more.
However, I also ask all of you to encourage the community-based organizations you work with to use these great tools so that they may share them with the customers they serve at the grass roots level.
As has been noted here today, developing the information is only the first step to improving financial education. We need the help of our private and nonprofit colleagues to deliver this information in the venues and in the language that people in the Latino community feel most comfortable with.
Finally, very soon, a national strategy for financial education will also be released to the public by the Commission. We hope that this document will provide more opportunities for continued discussion on how to identify ways to improve folks' access to financial education resources.
The first step of course, although there are many issues of concern, is helping our community understand the importance of saving and planning for their future, as well as preparing for the unexpected.
HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS
There is a Spanish saying that says: El que guarda siempre encuentra. This dicho or saying has been passed down through generations of my family, and tells us why it is important to save. Let me explain what it gets at: The message is that if you save now, you will always find what you need, in the moment you need to find it in the future. Savings is in essence a tool that can truly equip us with assets to better manage the unexpected.
President Bush is focused on providing folks with options on how to secure their future needs including health care needs. One example of how this is being done is through Health Savings Accounts.
HSA's put patients back in control of their health care. They aid in allowing small businesses to band together and negotiate more affordable prices on behalf of their employees and their families.
The Administration would like Americans with HSA's and their employers to make annual contributions to their accounts. These contributions would cover all out-of-pocket costs under their HSA policy, not just their deductible as provided under current law. These out-of-pocket expenses would be tax-free through their HSA.
The new proposal would also provide a credit for payroll taxes paid on HSA contributions made by individuals. Currently in 2006 there are 3.2 million American's covered by HSA type insurance plans, with the Treasury Department projecting that number to rise to 25-30 million individuals by the year 2010. The President's HSA proposals are projected to increase the number of Americans with HSA's from 30 million to 45 million individuals by 2010, a 50-percent rise. We also need to expand the development of health information technology and enact common-sense medical liability reforms that will allow doctors to focus on the most important element in health care the patient.
THE ECONOMY
Good news! Fortunately, our economy is thriving, and when more people have jobs, they have more opportunities to save for a rainy day and protect themselves. Again, a thriving economy is key to our continuing efforts to ensure we achieve an ownership society.
For quite some time, we have seen our economy move upward in the right direction. Nearly five million new jobs were created in the past three years two million of them just in the past year alone.
These are remarkable figures, especially if you also consider low 4.8% rate of unemployment lower than the average of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. This means that more Americans now have the opportunity to convert their hard work and new professional skills into accumulating assets and wealth building becoming real property owners of homes, small businesses and the like.
This is fantastic news, especially when you consider these remarkable happenings amidst the backdrop of the historic challenges we together faced as a country in the past few years the 9/11 terror attacks, the burst of the stock market bubble, and last year's Gulf Coast Hurricane.
Additionally, more Americans than ever before own their own homes, bringing our country ever closer to realizing the ownership society the President speaks of. Household wealth totaled $51.1 trillion in the third quarter an all time high. And tax revenues are surging.
Again, all in all, the American economy proves to be on solid footing. But we need to ask ourselves what we can do to continue promoting this trend and to protect people's hard earned assets.
I can not emphasize enough, how important it is for our leaders to remain consistent about the policies that helped us achieve these results in the first place.
Keeping in mind the steps the government has taken in the past, there is no question that well-timed tax relief, combined with sound fiscal policy from the Federal Reserve Board, created an environment in which workers could help secure their livelihood today and improve their chances of ensuring a secure financial future. It created an environment where workers could become home and business owners.
These policies work. And so, it will be important to ensure that we keep taxes low on both investments and incomes.
We must first protect our economic growth, and thereby protect the opportunities that help all Americans build a nest-egg, create wealth, and become home and business owners.
More Americans have jobs. This provides an ideal opportunity for continued economic growth, and provides fertile ground to lay the seeds of improved education including financial education.
It is a cycle. Improved education in turn will also aid in keeping the economy moving in the right direction. With sound financial policies and working together to achieve improved education, there will still be many opportunities to continue achieving.
In closing, allow me to reiterate that we need to continue working toward identifying the best practices for improving personal finance education and improving the way we get the right information and services, to the right folks, at the right time information about not only how to build assets, but also how to protect them against the regrettable or the unforeseeable.
I want to thank you all for making these issues a priority. And, I want to again express my gratitude for extending to me this invitation to join you today and allowing me to share my thoughts with you. Please enjoy the rest of your afternoon.