This week, President Joe Biden said that he would veto any attempt by Congress to protect the retirement savings American citizens have from ending up tied to ESG-obsessed entities. These are investments related to environmental and social governance.
U.S. Senator John Barrasso criticized the president for giving the middle finger to the middle class in the nation.
Barrasso maintained that the GOP is committed to protecting American families’ retirement savings, and he lashed out at Biden for not caring about Americans who are worried about the returns of their retirement funds.
The senator said that the president remains “more committed to his climate change agenda and his pipe-dream than he is to the American dream of hundreds of millions of American families.”
Barrasso noted that the Department of Labor has a “woke and weaponized bureaucracy” that has come out with new regulations on retirement funds. He said it will put these investments under the control of the “very liberal, left-wing agenda” that is under the banner of ESG.
The new Labor Department rule will basically push private retirement account fiduciaries to look at a company’s policies on climate change as a part of their investment decisions. Usually, they must just look at a stock’s profitability or return on investment over time. This move will impact about 150 million Americans.
Barrasso explained that means Americans “can’t invest in things that you might want to invest in, including oil and gas and coal and American energy. The reality is the investments that the Democrats are now mandating are things that don’t actually turn out to be good investments,” Barrasso explained.
When analysts from Bloomberg studied this decision, they said that the return on ESG investments falls behind the market. That means that people who are led to invest in those companies will fall farther and farther behind.
Bloomberg has already written several stories including: “Big ESG Funds Are Doing Worse Than the S&P 500” and “Why ETF Returns Trail Wider Market,” plus “ESG Funds Seen Underperforming Broader Market in 2023.”
Barrasso explained that not only are people’s investment returns worse, but the cost of making those investments – the expenses – are much higher. He said that people actually end up losing twice.
The GOP leadership in the House has successfully passed a resolution to kill the Labor Department’s new ESG-supporting rule by a vote of 216-204. Barrasso hopes that the Senate will follow suit and soon vote to overturn these mandates from the Biden Administration. He wants to stop Joe Biden from “strangling American families’ investments in their retirement funds.”
The senator believes that the American people deserve more freedom and choice than we are getting from these woke systems of control in the White House administration.
Barrasso is not alone, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) tweeted on Tuesday that the Senate would vote on the resolution to kill the Labor Department rule to stop “another Democrat attack on families’ finances.”
McConnell believes that the Biden Administration is trying to allow money managers to use Americans’ retirement savings to push the Left’s political agenda. This will actually decrease the return on investment for workers and it is just another attack by Democrats on American families.
If you look at the numbers in the Senate, McConnell has the support of all 49 Republicans and he also has West Virginia’s, Joe Manchin. This means the resolution is just one vote short of the simple majority needed to advance.
But all these numbers might mean nothing now that President Biden has boldly announced that he will veto the joint resolution if it crosses his desk.
Republicans are committed to protecting American families’ retirement savings. Yesterday @JoeBiden said he is going to veto our efforts. Joe Biden is giving the middle finger to middle class Americans who are concerned about the returns on their retirement funds. pic.twitter.com/KFfmHWPhdr
— Sen. John Barrasso (@SenJohnBarrasso) February 28, 2023
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The Biden Administration wants to let money managers use Americans’ retirement savings to push left-wing political causes while decreasing the return on investment for workers. Yet another Democrat attack on families' finances.
The Senate's going to vote this week.
— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) February 28, 2023
