David Altig and Alex Tabarrok are in the Wall Street Journal Online's Econoblog today. (Subscription required)
David links to this post of mine, making this my first inbound link from the Wall Street Journal. Pretty cool stuff for an assistant professor from Peoria who started blogging just a few months ago.
Anyway, the post he links to is where I observed that the Retirement Savings Accounts proposed by the President would apparently replace the Traditional and Roth IRAs presumably simplifying the tax treatment of savings and encouraging the same. I haven't seen anyone else mention this (though I'm sure by now word must be getting out--certainly after today it will), and I think it deserves some discussion. In principle, I have nothing against the idea if it simplifies and encourages saving. Of course some details would have to be worked out concerning how to deal with existing IRAs, but I'm pretty sure that's doable. The issue I have with it is that it's hard to imagine anything simpler than a Roth IRA. Maybe the best thing to do is to simply expand on that concept. Absent anything else on the table, that would be the first thing I would suggest.
If you're here for the first time via the Wall Street Journal site, welcome!
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