Speaker Ryan Continues to Assail DOL Fiduciary Rule

Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute made a similar reference to the DOL rule in a Web memo it published, calling the DOL rule "Obamacare for Your IRA." Author John Berlau, a senior fellow at the CEI, said the rule would "cost middle-class savers $80 billion in lost savings," citing a paper by what he called "center-left economists" Robert Litan and Hal Singer for Economists Incorporated titled Good Intentions Gone Wrong: The YetToBe Recognized Costs of the Department Of Labor's Proposed Fiduciary Rule.

Berlau called on Congress to block implementation of the rule, saying DOL has wrongfully bypassed the SEC "and will reshape the investment industry – something Congress never envisioned or intended."

In the CEI memo — The Department of Labor's Fiduciary Rule for Dummies (But Not the Dummies They Think We Are), Berlau argues that the DOL fiduciary rule presumes that Americans are "not smart enough to make good investment decisions for their retirement" and ""generally cannot distinguish good advice, or even good investment results, from bad." 

Further, Berlau argues that under the DOL rule, a fiduciary standard would be applied to a much broader range of individuals than has traditionally been the case. "Most of the news coverage of the rule has focused on the fact that it would deem broker-dealers 'fiduciaries,' clashing with the SEC, which so far has declined to designate them as such," Berlau writes. However, he says that under the DOL rule, financial professionals — even television and radio financial talk show hosts like Dave Ramsey, "who provide even one-time guidance or appraisal of investments could find themselves classified as 'fiduciaries.'"

— Check out What's Next for Variable Annuities After DOL Fiduciary Rule? on ThinkAdvisor.