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.
Me:
You:
Me:
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So yeah, you did say either buy a child a toy or invest in retirement.
No I didnt.
Okay, well, you can do the whole “what are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” thing, but I still quoted what you said.
No you didn’t.
Really? This is what you’re going with? That I didn’t actually copy and paste directly from what you said when anyone can just scroll up and see that I did?
Dude, there are more than just you and me here :)
I didn’t say any of those things. That was someone else.
However, in that case, the starting premise appears to have been you saying that there is only $30-40…no, nevermind. This is why I replied with short replies before. I really don’t care enough about arguing on the Internet about this. Whatever it was, you’re right. I said those things and everyone thinks whatever it was.