Trump Axes Obama's MyRA Retirement Accounts After $70mm Of Taxpayer Funds Wasted

[Justin Bilyj]

Trump Axes Obama's MyRA Retirement Accounts After $70mm Of Taxpayer Funds Wasted | Zero Hedge


An Obama-era program that created savings accounts to help more people put away money for retirement is being shut down by the Treasury Department, which deemed the program too expensive.

The 30,000 participants in the program, known as myRA and intended for people who did not have access to workplace savings plans, were sent an email on Friday morning alerting them of the closing. Participants were informed that they could roll the money into a Roth individual retirement account, the Treasury Department said.

To summarize, a MyRA was, more or less, an IRA without the investing flexibility as you could only invest in a massive government-sponsored ponzi scheme.

Shockingly, as the New York Times points out today, the accounts turned out to be a massive disaster costing taxpayers $70 million, or roughly 2x the amount of money that was invested in the 20,000 accounts that were actually opened and funded.

 

[scagnt83]

It would have been more efficient to just give the $70mm in "costs" directly to the enrollees.

This never made sense to me. Why not just expand eligibility to an existing program that has a proven track record of being financially viable? Like the Thrift Savings Program (TSP). It only offers ultra low-cost index options, and is a very successful program for federal workers.

The reason why is that this program ONLY put them in US Treasuries. If I remember correctly, they created a special Bond Issue just for this program. They saw it as a way to pad the coffers of the Treasury in the guise of being "pro-little guy".

The real disgusting thing is, if an Advisor put most peoples IRA into all Treasury Bonds, they would be seriously risking a breach of Fiduciary Duty. Uncle Sam can do it and its fine.

* I think Justin accidentaly posted this to the wrong forum. Maybe a Moderator can move it to the Retirement Forum.

 

[Justin Bilyj]

It would have been more efficient to just give the $70mm in "costs" directly to the enrollees.

This never made sense to me. Why not just expand eligibility to an existing program that has a proven track record of being financially viable? Like the Thrift Savings Program (TSP). It only offers ultra low-cost index options, and is a very successful program for federal workers.

The reason why is that this program ONLY put them in US Treasuries. If I remember correctly, they created a special Bond Issue just for this program. They saw it as a way to pad the coffers of the Treasury in the guise of being "pro-little guy".

The real disgusting thing is, if an Advisor put most peoples IRA into all Treasury Bonds, they would be seriously risking a breach of Fiduciary Duty. Uncle Sam can do it and its fine.

* I think Justin accidentaly posted this to the wrong forum. Maybe a Moderator can move it to the Retirement Forum.

Correct, miss-post to the wrong subforum. And I agree it was not about helping the little guy as it was a backdoor bail out of the treasury. Don't tho k this won't happen again. Next it could be a mandatory % of any qualified fund be invested in treasuries...