The Hill Misses the Story on Auto IRAs

David C. John / July 23, 2010

An article on the Automatic IRA in the July 13 edition of the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill (“Democrats and AARP want to make IRA enrollment automatic”) left out several crucial parts of the story.

First and foremost, the Automatic IRA has enjoyed wide bipartisan and cross-ideological support since it was first unveiled at The Heritage Foundation in February 2006. This is not, as the story implied, some partisan initiative. It was co-developed by Mark Iwry, then at Brookings, and me as part of the Retirement Security Project. It was endorsed by both the McCain and Obama campaigns during the 2008 campaign. This broad support continues. (more…)