Saving Our Retirements

John will vigorously fight efforts currently underway in Congress to nationalize our retirement system. These nationalization efforts aim to eliminate $80 billion in annual 401(k) and Individual Retirement Account (IRA) tax credits and rob $8 trillion of Americans hard-earned retirement savings. This “spread the wealth” government controlled program will force Hawaii families to subscribe to a Government Retirement Account. This ill-conceived, ill-fated GRA will eliminate your individual and employer’s defined benefit pension plans and replace them with a government-controlled plan that will add a small monthly stipend to a reduced Social Security plan payment. Instead, John wants to give workers and Hawaii families greater choice and control over their financial future. He wants to fix Social Security so we can keep our promises to our retirees. Part of that promise is keeping the retirement age unchanged and providing unconditional cost of living adjustments to retiree benefits. He strongly believes that retirees should not supplement earmarks, bailouts, and wasteful government spending with deferred payments and taxes attached to their retirement benefits.