Heidi Alexander: “the Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval is about protecting the right of ordinary Americans to retire.…”

“the Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval is about protecting the right of ordinary Americans to retire. That is what this is about. We are trying to stop the Labor Department's so-called fiduciary rule, which will restrict access to basic retirement planning advice for all but the wealthiest Americans and will force ordinary Americans to go it alone and to try to make the best guess they can about how to manage their money for retirement. Here is how. The administration's new rule updates the rules and requirements for retirement advisers, now requiring them to act as ``fiduciaries.'' That, like many of the administration's rules, sounds good and sounds helpful, but in practice it is going to cause great harm. The administration has created new legal liability, and that liability is so risky that advisers will only take on that liability and risk if they are advising individuals with big assets, so that the potential return outweighs the risk. In other words, good retirement advice will be available only to the rich under this rule. We know this because a similar rule was implemented in the United Kingdom in 2013. The result was that people with smaller savings accounts lost access to retirement advice. Many firms quit providing face-to-face advice for small accounts. A quarter of all small firms were forced to close shop altogether.…”