Clinton targeting middle class

By Marcella Bombardieri
Globe Staff

WEBSTER CITY, Iowa – Continuing her focus on the struggles of the middle class during a campaign swing this week, Hillary Clinton unveiled her second-biggest proposal of the campaign so far – after health care -- a plan to make 401(k) retirement savings plans available to all Americans.

For a couple earning up to $60,000 a year, the government would match the first $1,000 they invested in their 401(k) each year. For a couple earning between $60,000 and $100,000, the government would match a maximum of $500 a year.

Clinton’s “American Retirement accounts” would cost about $20 to 25 billion each year, Clinton’s advisors said yesterday. She said she would pay for it by freezing the estate tax at the 2009 level, which would mean taxing estates worth more than $7 million per couple. Her advisors said that for every wealthy family that would pay more in taxes, 5,000 other families would receive a tax cut.

The New York Senator got flack after the last Democratic candidates’ debate because she refused to be specific about how she would reform Social Security. She said yesterday that the 401(k) plan would not be used as a replacement for Social Security.

“We have to fight, and finally bury, the idea of privatizing Social Security,” she said.

Her appearance wasn’t all business, though. Clinton spent a few minutes playing talk show host, sitting with her microphone between three Iowans who are unable to save for their retirement. Then a woman in the audience told her that her moccasins were untied. She sat down and tied them, praising the comfort of the shoes she bought at an Iowa gift shop.