E&W Blog

In Case You Missed It, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) penned a Letter to the Editor to the Washington Post after its one-sided reporting failed to lay out how a rule from the Biden-Harris administration will have devastating impacts on Americans’ retirement savings. Contrary to the Post, the “fiduciary” rule is duplicative, will limit financial products available to retirees, and will harm low- and middle-class savers.


How to Protect Seniors
RE: “Rule to protect retirees in limbo” by Tony Romm (August 11, 2024)

The Aug. 12 front-page article “Rule to protect retirees in limbo” failed to lay out the harmful real-life effects of the 2024 Retirement Security Rule enacted by the Labor Department in April.

For starters, the sale and distribution of retirement products are already subject to regulation, some by the states and some by the Securities and Exchange Commission. These regulatory bodies already impose “best interest” standards for brokers and insurance agents. The 2024 rule would expand the Labor Department’s jurisdiction, creating overlapping and burdensome regulations that add little additional protection. Policymakers call that a solution looking for a problem.

Moreover, the article points out that the 2024 rule, a product of the Biden administration, is remarkably similar to the one issued by the Obama administration’s Labor Department in 2016 — including its legal troubles — but fails to explain why the 2016 rule was struck down. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled both that the Labor Department had overstepped and that the rule had adverse impacts on the retirement products market, including the withdrawal of several major companies from significant markets. Millions of retirement investors could have been deprived of investment advice.

The new rule is like a bad rerun. The nonpartisan National Association of Insurance Commissioners has “significant concerns” that this latest regurgitated rule will once again limit Americans’ access to retirement products. The Hispanic Leadership Fund previously warned that reinstating the 2016 rule would greatly reduce the retirement savings of 2.7 million individuals with incomes below $100,000.

The Biden administration is strangling the retirement products market, and the Education and Workforce Committee — charged with overseeing the 2024 rule — is working to stop it. Committee Republicans recognize retirement products are essential to the economic stability of American workers.

Virginia Foxx, Washington
The writer, a Republican, represents North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District and is chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.