Reply #92: 1999, and Orszag was behind that scheme too.

[bottomtheweaver]

Go to page 77 of this book and look at note 47:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Jaij7iiA4MQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0

There are probably more direct sources showing Orszag's participation in the Clinton USA plan but the fact is he's been behind some form of privatized retirement scheme, whether USAs or "universal 401ks," since the Clinton years. Here's a 2006 article from the NYT, when times were a little less grim:

"Just as the earned-income tax credit pays poor people to work, the universal 401(k) would pay poor people to save. The idea is to bring the benefits of markets and investing to the poor. An H&R Block study (“Saving Incentives for Low- and Middle-Income Families: Evidence From a Field Experiment With H&R Block,” by Esther C. Duflo, William G. Gale, Jeffrey Liebman, Peter R. Orszag and Emmanuel Saez, published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics in November) indicated that lower-income Americans have a strong demand for easy-to-use matching retirement accounts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/business/28scene.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=tyler%20cowen%20sperling&st=cse

Did you catch that? "The idea is to bring the benefits of markets and investing to the poor." And I'm sure the "strong demand for easy-to-use matching retirement accounts" has been overwhelming, not.