D.C. Pension Geeks
Welcome to DC Pension Geeks, a conversation with top retirement-related policymakers and regulators in and around Washington. Hosted by Brian Graff, an attorney, accountant, former Capitol Hill staffer, and now CEO of the American Retirement Association, it’s an inside view of the ups and downs, ins and outs and sometimes surprising turns Washington takes on the road to ensuring a secure retirement for millions of hard-working Americans.
D.C. Pension Geeks
Michael Kreps - Entire Tax Code ‘Up for Grabs'
The 50th anniversary of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) is rapidly approaching, a law that “affects real people every day,” according to Michael Kreps, a principal with Groom Law and chair of its Retirement Services Group.
Kreps, a former Senate HELP Committee retirement policy staffer, joins American Retirement Association (ARA) CEO Brian Graff to discuss recent Department of Labor (DOL) fiduciary setbacks, why it keeps happening, and the value of incremental change in regulatory policy.
They also note the coming tax policy debate in light of the expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and what may or may not happen. It’s an important and timely conversation at a critical juncture for the retirement plan industry.
But I think DB plan reform is definitely on the table. There are a number of members who are interested in it and there are a lot of simple things they could do.
Speaker 2:DC Pension Geeks brings you exclusive conversations with top retirement policymakers and regulators in and around Washington DC, hosted by Brian Graff, an attorney, accountant, former Capitol Hill staffer and CEO of the American Retirement Association. If you're looking for an insider's view of all the twists and turns that Washington takes on the road to ensuring a secure retirement for millions of Americans, you're in the right place. Welcome to DC Pension Geeks.
Speaker 3:Hello everybody, brian Graff here for another episode of DC Pension Geeks. We're recording this in the heat of Washington DC summer, so it's hot and sticky, but that doesn't stop DC pension geeks from marching along. We've still got lots to talk about, even though Congress has left town and we're about to have another convention. And we're about to have another convention which is going to be very exciting in Chicago, to say the least. We are very fortunate today to have Michael Kreps, who has a background on Capitol Hill and worked for the Senate HELP Committee as a retirement policy staffer and did some other things, I'm sure, for the committee too, and now is a principal with the world-famous Arisa Law firm, the Groom Law Group, which I'm sure many of you listeners are very familiar with.
Speaker 1:So, michael, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. It's great to be here and, Michael, we always like to start these by finding a little bit about you and how you. What led you to your destiny of becoming a great ERISA lawyer? Did you start out in primary school knowing that?
Speaker 1:you loved ERISA. I was born an ERISA lawyer. I'll die an ERISA lawyer.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I actually started as an art history major in college. Oh, interesting. They forced us to take a business of art class. I guess they basically when did you go to take a business of art class?
Speaker 3:I guess they basically assumed all the art majors. Where did you go to college?
Speaker 1:University of Colorado so.
Speaker 3:I was out in.
Speaker 1:Colorado and. Boulder and they assumed correctly that the art majors couldn't balance a checkbook. So they forced us to take a class to learn that kind of stuff and to budget and create a business plan. You know, be kind of the business side of art. And at the end of the class my professor came up and said you are a terrible artist.
Speaker 1:You're a horrible artist, that's not going to work for you, but you're pretty good with numbers and you can make a budget. What would you think about working for me? And so I did. I went and I worked in Korea for a couple of years and while I was in Korea I decided that I was better at the business side than I was on the art side. So I I went back to law school, uh, and then kind of it was and in fact, that's isn't that where you met your bride right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I was living, uh, in a a large city from from our perspective, called Daejeon, South Korea. My wife's from there and we go back a couple of times a year.
Speaker 3:That's really wow. That's a great story that I didn't know about. All right, so you went to law school.
Speaker 1:I went to law school and I didn't want to litigate. It's unpleasant. I think we can all agree litigation is fairly unpleasant. I'm more of an expand the pie type of person anyway, and so I loved employment law at Groom and then a summer associate and then an associate. I went to the Hill for a few years, like you said, but then came back to Groom when I was done on the Hill.
Speaker 3:I think everyone's story typically is stumbling upon Arisa and then just falling in love, madly in love falling in love, madly in love.
Speaker 1:You know, it's one of those things where it actually it affects real people every day, that you can do kind of interesting big, big picture policy work that affects lots of people. You can solve interesting problems both on the retirement and healthcare side, and so it's a good place to land. I think it's kind of where people care about public policy and are interested in employment law. A lot of people gravitate towards it.
Speaker 3:And we are, you know, encroaching rapidly the 50th anniversary of RISA, which we've talked about a little bit on this podcast with some other guests. So, Michael, when you were on the Hill, what legislation did you work on?
Speaker 1:I went up there to the kind of tail end of the Affordable Care Act, but then did Dodd-Frank. I mean just a series of pension reform bills, both the single and multi-employer side, largely on funding. We were still adjusting to the financial crisis 2008-2009 financial crisis and so a lot of the work that was done was around defined benefit funding and, in particular, multi-employer funding.
Speaker 3:But we also worked on a Didn't you also work on a precursor to PEPS at some point?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did so. While that was happening, I worked for a senator from Iowa named Tom Harkin who wanted to do more big picture type stuff, and so he put out a big bill that had at its core kind of a version of the automatic IRA that was kind of more robust in a lot of respects, bunch of systemic reforms, and one of them was the original. The original, uh, the, what became peps, um, and in fact tom harkin named it apps with mike enzi, if you remember, senator I do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, two great guys when, uh, when, when the world was a lot more, uh, civilized and bipartisan for sure, sure.
Speaker 3:For sure. So, um, let's deal well, just recently, uh, had a bad week, um, to say the least, and you know, you've, you've on the Hill, off the Hill, have been involved in what I call is the soap opera saga of DL Wells' attempt to update a rule that you know was written in the regulation, I think, stems back to 1975, right, I mean, which was, you know, shortly after ERISA was enacted. And you know, reasonably, I mean, I don't think anyone well, maybe I'm sure that on this subject there are some people that would argue it's perfect exactly the way it is, as written in 1975. But I think reasonable people would agree that, given that 401k didn't exist back then, a little bit of updating might be necessary. What do you think? Where do you think DOL is going wrong here? Because they keep on trying and they keep on getting batted down batted down.
Speaker 1:We think about that a lot.
Speaker 1:This is year 15 of the fiduciary rule saga and I think it's challenging, it is a sad moment, it is a soap opera, it's an incredible story actually, and someone will do a doctoral thesis at some point and tell it.
Speaker 1:But you know, the fundamental challenge here is that the Department of Labor is a is a small regulator in the grand scheme of things, you know it's.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have the same resources as DOJ, or even Treasury, for that matter. It's small and it's focused on employment issues. And so they've chosen to pursue a set of regulatory reforms that are broad in scope and extremely impactful for the financial services community, and not impactful just in changing behavior, but at their bottom line, affecting revenue, and some people go up, some people go down from it, but it has a. Everyone would agree that it would have a profound effect if they could get it across the finish line, and I just don't think the Department of Labor is well situated to either, you know, in terms of its authority or in terms of its resources, to fight the type of regulatory fight that it's bitten off, that it's taken on. It doesn't have the strongest statutory authority to regulate the financial services market. It has some authority, but it's fairly limited and the Fifth Circuit showed some of those limits. And the agency itself doesn't have the resources to even oversee the industry in the way that the rule would really need if you were going to implement it.
Speaker 3:And you're speaking specifically to the extension of the rule effect to IRAs right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and even just more generally I think, iras, hsas, the extension outside of the traditional employer-provided plan world. But even in that world the rule is attempting to regulate the communications between financial service professionals and their clients and impose a standard of care on them, and the Department of Labor just will have a very tough time enforcing those standards with such a small staff. It's not the SEC. And so they've bitten off a huge project that, if done properly, would require tremendous outlay of resources, and they've done it on kind of shaky statutory authority and that kind of swing for the fences approach. You know, if you lose in court, you've lost, and so the alternative approach would be an incremental approach, more like what they did with fee disclosure. You'll remember, brian, that was not a simple task. Oh no it was quite controversial.
Speaker 3:When it first I mean it was a big deal, I mean right, and now it's sort of like, okay, you know, it is what it is.
Speaker 1:Because they spent years working on what was basically a compromise package of reforms and you know some people love those discussions.
Speaker 3:So I mean, I really agree with you, because I don't think some people think this is the end of the story and then you know, they're just going to wave the white flag and stop. I don't think regulators think that way. I think, rather, incremental change is still positive change and oftentimes having incremental change is the only positive change you can achieve, and that certainly seems to be the case here. What do you think that looks like in this case?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that DOL has issued guidance over the years that have limited the positions it can take, and they could start by scaling back some of that guidance. They've already started that process. There was an advisory opinion in 2005 that severely limited their ability to oversee rollover recommendations, and they've repealed that now. That kind of thing should have been the first thing they considered, as opposed to a piece of a rulemaking right. If I were doing this, that's called the Deseret Letter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, it's called the Deseret Letter and what it basically said is and folks will quibble with this summary, but what it basically said at least one of the positions was that when you make a rollover recommendation, you're doing two things You're telling someone that they can take a distribution, which is a non-fiduciary act. You say you're allowed to take a distribution for this plan and we think you should. And then, after the money leaves, then you're providing the fiduciary advice afterwards about where the money should go. And they've basically bifurcated the advice.
Speaker 1:And its new rulemaking deal says no, no, no, when you advise someone on a rollover, implicit in that rollover recommendation is a recommendation that you liquidate some securities or you sell or buy an investment, and so we should treat that as advice. So DOL kind of fixed that piece of it. But they went a lot further. They really, with the fiduciary rule, they really tried to broaden the scope of who is a fiduciary and what types of conduct qualifies advice, and they swung for the fences. It was a big swing and all it took was one district court in Texas and now they have two to put the brakes on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is the second swing for the fences. Right it is. They tried the swing, the maybe somewhat bigger swing for the fences, the first time around in 2016. And they also struck out there. Yeah, I mean, I think the same argument can be made for 2020-02. That was incremental change that impacted the operation of the fiduciary standard as it applied to ERISA plans, as well as interactions with participants and plan sponsors ERISA plans, as well as interactions with participants and plan sponsors. I think my own view of the incremental change is that. I do think that, with respect to ERISA plans, the idea of revisiting the five-part test this probably has some merit, but that's a much more narrower scope approach to things than you know what they tried to do All right, let's switch gears and talk about tax.
Speaker 3:Whatever they're going to call this tax debate, it's not really tax reform. No one's reforming anything. It's more like either cutting or raising taxes in various forms. So you were off the Hill in 2016 as a lobbyist in addition to being a lawyer.
Speaker 3:A lawyer lobbyist, as we call them in DC, and you were very involved in a coalition that ARA was one of the founding members of, called Save Our Savings, which did a fantastic job in stopping what was a pretty, you know, aggressive proposal by Ways and Means Republicans to require all deferrals to be Roth contributions so-called Rothification which in the end, fortunately, was decided. That did not move forward. Frankly, one can point to a tweet by then President Trump saying that he likes 401ks and 401ks are good and we're not touching them. I can't do a Trump impression, nor am I going to try Now.
Speaker 3:This tax bill, the Tax Cut and Jobs Act is set to expire next year, so I think everyone agrees in this town that we're going to have a tax debate and, frankly, regardless of who the president is and regardless of who controls Congress because both sides of the aisle have things in the tax, tax exclusion Democrats care more about the standard deduction, the state and local tax deduction provision, and whenever there's tax debate in this case, cbo came out with a score of $4.6 trillion to extend this without paying for it and given the state of our national debt, which is $35 trillion, I think most of the signals we're getting is that there's not a lot of appetite to write a blank check. So, michael, how do you think this process is going to go?
Speaker 1:do you think this process is going to go? So I think, as a preliminary matter, it's important to remind folks that rockification was very real last time. I realize now, seven years later, we look back and say, well, you know, that was kind of that was the right result. They didn't touch the retirement system Easy peasy, we solved it. But it took months and months and months of advocacy and work to get us to a position where we could knock down the Rothification arguments and get that out of the discussion. We could knock down the Rothification arguments and get that out of the discussion. And that you mentioned, brian, that tweet by then President Trump about the 401k system. That also didn't happen by accident. That happened because we we worked for months to pitch the morning shows that he was watching on the idea that that Republicans were going to quote, unquote tax your retirement and they picked it up and he happened to be watching and he fired out the seat. It, you know that was. That was just kind of success. There's some luck there, but it's some successful advocacy and you would think that, well, okay, congress learned its lesson. It's not going to go back to that. They took a beating on the politics last time. They tried but they really haven't.
Speaker 1:Both parties will say that they support the private retirement system and I believe them when they say that. But then when they need money and they're scrounging for change in the couch cushions to pay for a priority, they have to make some tough choices and we're going to be faced with a lot of really tough choices next year. If they're going to pay for some of these extensions and you look at where they go for that revenue, there aren't that many places. And even in the Secure 2.0 Act, which I think the industry largely supported had a lot of good stuff. I mean, they paid for part of that bill with Rothification of catch-up contributions.
Speaker 1:Now it was for a limited subset of people, the highly competent employees but it was still a camel's nose to some extent and they learned the lesson that the industry can live with some Rothification. That was the lesson that at least some people took. They will say the right things. Right now, politicians will say we won't touch your 401k, we won't mess with the retirement system, because that's what they need to do from a political matter at this point in time. But when it comes time to making very tough choices about how we tax families. What kind of relief we provide from higher tax rates. You know, salt, even child tax credits, child tax credit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything's on the table and we just need to be ready to mount a vigorous defense.
Speaker 3:And everything is literally everything is on. The entire tax code is really kind of up for grabs here. And you know, although we care very much about the retirement system, although we care very much about the retirement system, there are groups representing every constituency, every business interest, all over the place, that have their special pet tax provisions. And so you know, they're all gearing up and getting ready. Gearing up and getting ready, I mean, the entire town here is essentially prepping for, you know, this epic tax battle that seems to happen every 10 years.
Speaker 1:And you know, I would expect, michael, I mean I think you're thinking about rebooting the coalition. Is that right? No-transcript.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think you were really instrumental in making it a coalition that was not just retirement industry groups and companies, but also groups that represented minority voices, groups that represented, you know, minority voices, represented voices of seniors, women's groups that I think were critical in getting the Hill to listen to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at the end of the day the retirement system is set up. You know the way we've constructed it is to try and get working people. Give them the opportunity to save Very rich people have opportunities to save on their own Very, very low income. People have other mechanisms for governmental support. But that broad swath of Americans that are just working middle class normal jobs, raising families, those are the people that are benefited by the existing system and it takes a little bit of work to remind lawmakers of that.
Speaker 3:Do you think that there's been a ton of recent criticism in the media, driven by some academics, in particular Teresa Guiloducci from the New School, attacking the system as not benefiting middle class but rather just only benefiting the wealthy? We dispute the data that she relies on in that regard, but, putting that aside, do you think that's created more of a climate where the system could be at risk in tax reform?
Speaker 1:What I think it's done is break up the consensus on the left about the retirement system political consensus, not the policy consensus. So the political consensus for many years has been, at least for Democrats, that the retirement system is fine. You know it's chugging along. We'll protect people's defined benefit plans where we have to make funding rule changes. But you know, as a general matter, normal citizens aren't upset about 401ks. They like their 401ks, in fact, and there's no reason to make changes.
Speaker 1:And any changes we make will upset people and the industry has done a good job of organizing and reinforcing that message. I think what the challenges to the 401k system really what they highlight for members is that there is an emerging or maybe it's always been there and it's just getting a little louder portion of the Democrats coalition or at least the kind of left leaning coalition that has serious problems with the 401k system and serious concerns and and this is the first time a lot of members are hearing that right. In the past they've just heard from industry, from people like the 401ks. Now they're hearing some voices saying, no, you progressives, this is, this isn't something you should support, and those studies.
Speaker 3:And what's the Sorry, Michael? What's the primary reasons that they're citing for why progressives are saying you shouldn't support this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one it's the tax incentive they view as being upside down. I think one it's the tax incentive they view as being upside down that lower income people, the bottom half, don't pay income taxes anyway. They're largely exempt from or largely insulated from income tax liability, and so the tax incentive for 401k savings doesn't directly benefit for them. They're not getting a huge benefit from it. I think what gets lost there, of course, is that we have a voluntary system and we've set it up so that there's a tax incentive for those it matters to, and in particular, a lot of the decision makers, and then we've set up a series of non-discrimination rules that help push that benefit down.
Speaker 3:And auto-enrollment helps there right, which is why we give it some special treatment, because it broadens, not upside down at all, it's right side up when you incorporate the employer contributions that are that need to be given to the workers to satisfy those non-discrimination rules which typically they look at when they're analyzing the incentives, there's definitely some softening in terms of you know, if we're talking about concerns around the tax incentives, if you're talking about that in the context of a larger tax debate, that presents a risk.
Speaker 3:Right, right, absolutely Social Security. You worked for a senator who I would say, over the history of Social Security, probably the biggest proponents, fans of the system, defenders of the system and Tom.
Speaker 3:Harkin and Tom Harkin, and we now are less or, depending on you know how you read the report. Let's say it's within 10 years to what could be a disaster for the system, where there'd be automatic cuts to the tune of 20 to 25% and, unlike in 1983, and I've gone back and actually read some of the history behind that process that was really a temporary problem at the time because of inflation, whereas this is a permanent problem.
Speaker 3:This isn't a current economic situation that's causing a shortfall, but rather the math is simple there are just not enough workers relative to the number of retirees, and people are living longer and therefore collecting benefits longer. So there are a lot of solutions that some people have put out there, but what do you think it's going to take for policymakers to really start the process of addressing what is a huge issue for this country, that probably the most successful program in history in terms of taking people out of poverty?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is a. It's been a remarkably successful program overall, and I think the American people are largely strongly in favor of Social Security. Right, so if the polling shows that 80 plus percent support Social Security? Even people who are generally government skeptical are pretty pro Social Security, including many members of my family, and so you know I think there's strong support for it. So then the obvious question is well, we can all see that there is an issue coming down the pike. Why can't we address it? And we can't address it because there's just a lack of will to do so that politically it is difficult because we have to make tough choices.
Speaker 3:I mean this is just math, brian, as you know. I mean there's some policy issues here, but they're not that complicated. This is much more of a political issue than it is a policy issue.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right, and so Democrats, I just don't think, are all that comfortable with the idea of reducing benefits, and, to date, republicans haven't been comfortable with raising revenue to support the benefit levels where they are now. So we've been at an impasse. I'm not sure what it takes, other than a crisis, an actual crisis happening tomorrow, to force lawmakers to address it. But this isn't. Social Security, is not unique, right. We have similar funding challenges with Medicare as well, and other areas of the federal government.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but the numbers here are astronomical. And the difference in Medicare okay is that Medicare, there won't be automatic cuts to the benefits. We're just going to have to. We're going to automatically draw out of general revenues. Here there'll be, you know, a 20, 25% haircut for seniors who you know, a third of whom collect social security. That's essentially all of their income. And you know it would be a I mean, it would be a disaster. And assuming you think politically, it would be a disaster. And assuming you think politically it would be a disaster that they can't solve, they won't allow to happen. Let's assume that I could just let it expire, right? You're talking about a cost at that point that's estimated currently about $400 billion dollars a year. That's a huge number it is.
Speaker 1:It is a huge, it is a huge number. It is a very, very large number. Uh, and it's a they don't well, let's put it this way they. There are a number of solutions for it and you see a lot of solutions on the table. We've had some folks put some solutions on the table that were basically benefit cuts, and we've had some revenue raisers and, in particular, some proposals to raise taxes on upper-income people. There's also been some proposals to rob Peter to pay Paul.
Speaker 3:Oh, the magic coin proposal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, basically eliminate or reduce the tax incentive for retirement savings and then use that revenue to to pay for it. Well, the magic coin one is is a separate and unique proposal, but the one that to reduce or eliminate the tax incentive for private sector retirement savings and use that revenue then to pay for Social Security. And there's been some bipartisan support for that, at least outside of Congress, of course that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would just fix Social Security while destroying the retirement savings of the middle class.
Speaker 1:It would, and you're using funny money, right. Right, you know, brian, the way Congress scores retirement savings is based on kind of a 10-year projection which doesn't take into consideration that a lot of the money will come out of the system and be taxed, and so you're not really raising the revenue you think you're raising anyway. 100% correct.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's a. I mean, I think this, I think it's probably one of the biggest concerns from you know, a government policy standpoint is the. It's really a process, it's a political process problem that is precluding a discussion about shoring up the funding for what is, I'd say quite clearly, the number one most important government program.
Speaker 1:It highlights some of the failings of our political system more generally. No-transcript.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's pretty scary stuff and you know, importantly, Social Security is foundational to our entire system. I mean, it works hand in hand with the private system hand in hand with the private system and you know, for lower income, people does a fairly decent job of producing replacement rates, and so you know you need both 401ks and the social security system working together, Right. So, defined benefit plans there was a hearing by Senator Sanders committee, the help committee that you were associated with previously. Democrats control the Senate, so he was the. He's the chairman, and they're very interested in trying to revive defined benefit plans. As I know, you probably talked to the committee and the committee staff about this, as we have. What's your take on that exercise? Do you think it's just a fool's errand or do you think there's something to this?
Speaker 1:I don't think it's a fool's errand. I think that in their current iteration, db plans have not fared well with large employers. The employers that have them, they run them well. I think they're well-managed, they're well-funded systemically. At this point there's a lot of things that are happening right, but what's obviously a problem is that most of them are closed, at least in the private sector, and that we don't see a lot of companies starting new plans outside of kind of the smaller small market.
Speaker 1:Um, that is a an issue that we created through public policy. We made choices that made it more difficult, more costly, more burdensome, more challenging for employers to manage the plans, both in terms of the risk but also just their investment risk and the mortality risk, normal pension risk, but also just their general liability with respect to the pension and how they carry it on their books. Those are all affirmative policy choices we made and they didn't have to be made that way. Other countries didn't make them in the same way and we could make choices to do something different. I don't think it's a fool's errand at all to think about options for reinvigorating the DB system. There are some simple things we can do. There's some more complex systemic reforms we could take on, but it's worth at least a discussion with it. And, brian, you may remember, we tried, congress tried with the Pension Protection Act of the DBK, if you remember. And I remember that's a.
Speaker 1:that's a good example where Congress did some heavy lifting to come up with kind of a middle of the road solution that used a DB component and a DC component, only to have the regulators never implement it, and that's been a problem across the board. We need kind of more strategery around our defined benefit plan policy.
Speaker 3:Well, I also think that, although DBK is kind of a was inventive and there's actually some talk about kind of doing a version of that with cash balance plans where the match a 401k match would go into a cash balance plan, maybe in secure 3.0. The fundamental problems with DB plans that you were raising in the conversation just a minute ago were really never addressed in the Pension Protection Act benefit plans. Concerns that employers have about premiums to the PBGC even though you know we've done some cuts to premiums, sometimes we've increased premiums. Concerns about, you know, the funding rules. Although we've attempted to do some things to make them better, there's still fundamental challenges that I think you're right need to be addressed if we really want to reform the system in a real way. Do you think that Secure 3.0 might take a stronger crack at that?
Speaker 1:I think it might. There's a lot of legislative fatigue around retirement. We've had a number of bills in quick succession, right, we had Secure 1.0 in 2019. We had Secure 2.0 in 2022. And then we had the ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act, and a couple other bills in there that had funding rule changes and other systemic reforms, and so we've just had a lot of legislation on retirement in a pretty short amount of time. It's going to take a while for the Hill to cobble together all the good ideas.
Speaker 1:But, I think DB plan reform is definitely on the table. There are a number of members who are interested in it and there are a lot of simple things they could do. Reducing single employer PBGC premiums is an easy fix. Those could come down significantly without hurting PBGC in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 3:Michael, thank you so much for your time today. There's a lot going on in the. You know, when you stumbled across ERISA and decided that you wanted to focus on this area, I don't think any one of us who stumbled across ERISA could possibly imagine how dynamic the subject is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an incredible area. I encourage younger people to get involved in it. It's probably one of the more interesting places you can work and affect real policy change. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you.