◼ The president's annual State of the Union address is another example of how dysfunctional our government in Washington has become. - Star Parker/Washington Examiner
President Obama introduced in this year's State of the Union address his proposal to create new retirement accounts for, in the words of the White House, “the millions of low- and middle-income households earning up to $191,000.” What they are calling “MyRAs.”
How could enhancing retirement savings not be a good idea? And, even better, it is a free lunch. Again in the words of the White House, “the account balance will never go down in value” and will be totally secure because it will be “backed by the U.S. government.”
Obama is creating these accounts with the greatest of ease, without even a new law from Congress, by doing what he has done better than any president in American history: drive the U.S. government into debt.
These wonderful new retirement accounts will invest only in U.S. government bonds. And who guarantees them?
...Meanwhile, as Obama uses government bonds to create magical new risk-free retirement savings accounts, there was not a word in the State of the Union about the broken state of affairs of the government's oldest retirement plan: Social Security.
If the president really wants to enhance retirement savings of low- and middle-income Americans, and create real savings and investment while addressing the fiscal disaster of Social Security, let these folks opt out of the Social Security black hole and use those funds to open a real retirement account.
