Brent D. Gardner, CLU, ChFC

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019 was signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 20, 2019. What does it mean to you?

Taxes are the price that regular people pay for government spending. Whether that spending goes to things and services that people want, like road repairs, schools, fire and police protection, trash pickup, public parks, or to things that people don’t really want, like sports stadiums or excessively lavish pension benefits for bureaucrats, the bill for all these things is ultimately paid through taxes.

Every time the Social Security trustees issue their annual report, some people notice that the system’s huge unfunded liabilities (currently, a $42.1 trillion cumulative shortfall) are inherently unfair to future Americans. That threatens its status as the “third rail” of politics, which electrocutes anyone who tries to touch it.