Senator Clinton recently announced her plan for yet another new government subsidy for the middle class. This one is to encourage investment: if an individual puts away money for retirement, the government would match some portion of it, depending on their income level.
But as George Will points out in an op-ed today, in the past Senator Clinton has tarred the idea of investing in the stock market as a “risky scheme.” Senator Clinton opposed proposals to allow individuals to use a portion of their Social Security contributions to fund personal retirement accounts as “a dangerous gamble that would make retirement insecure by linking retirement savings to the stock market. Echoing a trope from Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, she said investing retirement funds in the stock market was a “‘risky scheme.'”
Will uses this as just one example of Democrats’ attempts to pander to the middle class with promises of government largess.
It’s important to note that not only are Democrats like Senator Clinton promising a slew of expensive new taxpayers-provided programs for favored voters, they are also ignoring the problems in existing programs. Senator Clinton, for example, has yet to provide any hint of what she would do to solve Social Security’s financial problems, as I wrote about here.
Investment in the market is a good idea, but creating costly new government entitlement programs is not. Let’s hope that Senator Clinton applies her new love of saving and investment to the federal retirement program that’s already exists.