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‘The 401(k) industry owns Congress’: How lawmakers quietly passed a $300 billion windfall to the wealthy (www.politico.com)
submitted 8 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
88 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Greased by lobbying and campaign cash, tax breaks for retirement savings are one thing Congress agrees on. But they also blow out the deficit and add to income inequality.

Five months before Congress faced a near-catastrophic standoff over the debt ceiling, with Republicans demanding restrictions to food and Medicaid programs to rein in spending, a bill that raised the cost of private retirement savings accounts to $282 billion per year was quietly signed into law.

In this era of deeply divided politics, the 2022 bill known as Secure 2.0 was hailed as a bipartisan success — a victory for average Americans. It had sailed through the House by a whopping 414-5 vote. It followed four other major bills passed between 1996 and 2019 that dramatically expanded taxpayer savings – all equally lauded as bipartisan victories.

But that rare issue that brought a divided Washington together also increased wealth disparities and the federal deficit. And the victory was most strongly applauded by the burgeoning financial services industry, for whom tax-advantaged retirement savings has transformed a $7 trillion retirement market in 1995 to a $38.4 trillion behemoth in 2023.

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[-] protist@mander.xyz 2 points 8 months ago

You're misunderstanding my point. I'm saying it's not healthy to tell your young child explicitly that you're making this choice between buying them a toy or saving for retirement. This conversation started with you saying you just had that conversation with your daughter yesterday.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -3 points 8 months ago

Do you think the conversation was literally "I'm making a choice between buying you this toy and saving for retirement?" For one thing, she's almost 14.

[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The only person I've seen attempting to make that argument in this thread is you. It's been a really weird strawman thing.

[-] protist@mander.xyz 3 points 8 months ago

Egad man, what is happening in your head

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Here is what is happening in my head.

You said:

I’m saying it’s not healthy to tell your young child explicitly that you’re making this choice between buying them a toy or saving for retirement.

I agree. But I don't have a young child anyway.

This conversation started with you saying you just had that conversation with your daughter yesterday.

That was not the conversation we had.

I hope this clears things up.

[-] protist@mander.xyz 0 points 8 months ago

You should probably go up top there and change where you said "I just had this conversation with my daughter yesterday"....

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

I did not say that. That is false. This is what I said and this is it in context:

In other words, I was talking to my daughter about people who think you should invest money rather than buy groceries.

Once again, I hope this clears things up.

[-] protist@mander.xyz 2 points 8 months ago

Not even a little 😕 Who exactly is telling you to invest your money instead of buying groceries?

this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
302 points (96.9% liked)

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