Rummel: Conservatives should support Seattle mayor’s retirement savings proposal

Seattle Mayor Tim Burgess will roll out a plan this week offering retirement-savings accounts for the 200,000 workers in the city who currently don’t have one through their employer.

There are parts of this plan I know will be difficult to stomach for some. If passed, employers will be required to offer retirement-savings plans if they don’t already. Burgess told The Seattle Times a private company would manage the accounts, but they still estimate there will be a one-time setup cost to employers of about $200, then about $30 per year per employee.

That said, employers shouldn’t have to contribute anything to these accounts, instead, employees will fund the accounts themselves with the option of opting out at any time.

I know, regardless of context, the idea of any government telling any company what to do is still distasteful to many, but this seems worth it.

I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a progressive, but I spend a lot of time with conservatives, and I think I have a decent idea of what they value. That’s why I think this proposal, at least in concept, should receive bipartisan support.

Earlier this year, I attended Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. If you’re unfamiliar, Ramsay is a radio host, author, and famous purveyor of financial advice. You can take his classes via video instruction at churches all over the country. My parents told me they’d pay for it if I attended all the sessions.

I was a little skeptical at first. I thought I was already pretty responsible with my money and I wasn’t convinced Ramsey could help me. I was wrong. The class was intuitive, informative, and implementing his advice made me feel so much more in control of my income.

Ramsey’s suggested plan is actually pretty simple: save three to six months’ worth of income for emergencies, pay off all your debt as soon as possible, buy responsible insurance policies, then start saving like crazy for retirement.

Ramsey’s advice is the opposite of a get-rich-quick-scheme. It’s more like get-rich-basically-as-slowly-as-possible and live a pretty spartan lifestyle while you do it. “Live like no one else now, so later you can live like no one else,” is one of Ramsey’s catchphrases.

When you really break down Ramsey’s numbers though, when he’s telling followers they’re capable of saving millions of dollars over the course of their lives, he’s talking about retirement accounts. He’s talking about taking advantage of compounding interest in the form of retirement and mutual funds.

He tells people to pay off all their debt so they have more money to save for retirement. He tells people to keep an emergency fund because then you never have to put anything on a credit card, you don’t accrue interest, and then you can save more money for retirement. Pretty much everything is in service of this goal.

It might seem like I’m harping on this, but that’s because I agree with Ramsey that saving is really important, and Americans have proven they’re not going to start doing it without encouragement. A 2016 GoBankingRates survey found 35 percent of adults in the U.S. only had several hundred dollars in their savings account and 34 percent had zero.

Conservatives constantly make the case America is great because people have the ability here to work their way out of poverty. Sometimes I take issue with how easy my conservative colleagues make this sound, but I do think it’s great that in the U.S. if you save really diligently your entire life you should be able to live comfortably.

But if we’re going to advertise the ease with which people can move up in socioeconomic status in our country, we shouldn’t shy away from programs like these that make that dream more realistic. We can’t lament the fact that Americans don’t save if we don’t support legislation that makes that practice easier.

Right now, the proposal wouldn’t require employers to put any money in, and employees aren’t forced to use them. I know if either of those facts changed, we’d be having a different conversation. As it stands now, though, this policy seems uncontroversial regardless of your political affiliation.

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