A proposal submitted last year that sought to make the retirement assets of debtors subject to bankruptcy proceedings left many questioning the safety of their retirement assets. The measure in question was proposed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) as a means to dissuade wealthy debtors from declaring bankruptcy, thus blocking the government from collecting their debt from their retirement savings. Grassley intended the proposal to curtail the practice by making it legal for people to relinquish their safeguards under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. But when American tax payers got wind of the measure, it generated a lot of negative publicity and was killed.