House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) must have been a little frustrated yesterday afternoon. The Republican congressman has been eager to unveil his six-part policy agenda – which he’s marketing as the GOP’s “Better Way” plan – and the first part was scheduled for release yesterday afternoon at a struggling area in Washington, D.C.  And while that must have been frustrating for the Republican leader, in a way, it may have been a blessing in disguise – because if the public fully understood what Ryan was recommending with regard to poverty, he’d probably have an entirely different controversy on his hands.  Specifically, Ryan and the GOP would like to abolish the Department of Labor’s recently released “fiduciary rule,” which once it’s fully implemented in 2018 will simply require that investment professionals act in their clients’ best interests when offering advice on their retirement accounts. […]  Conservatives, meanwhile, have claimed the rule will make it harder for low- and middle-income families to get financial advice, which how it makes its way into Paul Ryan’s anti-poverty agenda.  This may sound a little wonky, but bear with me for a minute.  Your adviser can’t direct you to an investment he or she knows to be bad for you, but he or she isn’t required to recommend the best possible option for you, either. If there’s a retirement-fund option that would basically work to your benefit, and that also helps your adviser with commissions or rewards, he or she can push you in that direction – even if you’d make more money following a better path.  According to the Obama administration, this translates into $17 billion a year that could be in investors’ retirement accounts, but isn’t.  So, the administration is planning to scrap the “suitability standard” and replace it with the “fiduciary rule” that will take effect in 2018.  Investment firms, not surprisingly, aren’t at all pleased, and according to Paul Ryan, blocking the fiduciary rule belongs as part of the House Republicans’ new anti-poverty agenda.  Which is kind of hilarious. How many low-income families, struggling to pay rent and put food on the table, are going to see a material difference in their lives if Paul Ryan makes it easier for finance-industry professionals to change the standards for retirement investments to benefit firms over consumers?  What’s more, let’s not miss the forest for the trees. The Speaker of the House has been eager, if not desperate, to show that he and his Republican conference are serious about governing – so serious that they’ve spent months crafting a detailed, six-point agenda that they’re rolling out this election year. More than five years after claiming the House majority, GOP leaders have declared they’re finally ready to demonstrate Republicans’ preparedness to lead.  But as it turns out, Part One of the “Better Way” platform – ostensibly the GOP’s best approach to combating poverty – is the same, stale, far-right ideas, coupled with an item from Wall Street’s wish list that has practically nothing to do with poverty.  But that doesn’t make yesterday’s pitch compelling. If anything, all Ryan has done is reinforce the doubts about his party’s capacity for governing that he hoped to dispel.
The Speaker hoped to prove House Republicans are serious about combating poverty. Paul Ryan inadvertently did the opposite.