title:  House Republicans Just Went After Your Retirement Savings, And They Want To Give It To Wall Street (VIDEO)
text: On Thursday Republicans in Congress voted to overturn a rule, proposed by the Obama administration, which requires investment advisers to act in the best interest of the person they are advising.The rule was first proposed last year, after a detailed report from Senator Elizabeth Warren revealed that financial advisers are receiving a treasure trove of incentives, kickbacks and non-cash awards for giving out bad financial advice to seniors and people on the brink of retirement.As Addicting Info reported here, Warren s report showed that financial advisers are rewarded with all-expenses-paid, luxury vacations to places like South Africa, the Bahamas and Aruba, as well as golf outings, theater tickets, gift cards and cash prizes, all for steering retirees toward risky, company-owned investment options.While financial advisors personally profit from doling out bad advice, retirees lose more than $17 billion a year because of a loophole that leaves them unprotected under traditional conflict of interest laws.The Obama administration has been working to fix the loophole by including people who seek advice about pension and retirement accounts as people toward whom advisers have a  fiduciary obligation,  under the conflict of interest law.In the meantime, the industry has been fighting hard to keep the rule from taking effect.During a hearing on the proposed rule last year, Senator Elizabeth Warren went head-to-head with the President of Primerica, Peter Schneider, who was brought in to testify against the rule.Watch Senator Warren hammer away at Schneider in the video below, courtesy of Sweet Videos on YouTube:While it s clear from Senator Warren s report and the testimony in the video above that the rule is needed to protect consumers, Republicans proved yet again that they have no desire to serve the interests of the public.Congress introduced and passed H.J.Res.88, which reads as follows:This joint resolution disapproves and nullifies a Department of Labor rule published on April 8, 2016, relating to the definition of the term  fiduciary  and the conflict of interest rule with respect to retirement investment advice.(The rule defines who is a fiduciary with respect to pension and retirement plans. Under current law, a person who provides investment advice has a fiduciary obligation that requires the person to provide advice in the sole interest of plan participants and beneficiaries. The rule changes the definition of  investment advice  to treat people who provide investment advice to pension and retirement plans for a fee or other compensation as fiduciaries in a wider array of advice relationships.)As much as Republicans would like him to, there s almost no chance that the President Obama would sign any bill which attacks the proposed fiduciary rule.Still, the Republican-sponsored resolution confirms what we already know about their priorities.While Democrats like President Obama and Elizabeth Warren are fighting to protect the public from Wall Street predators, Republicans are working hard to pass legislation that prevents them from doing just that.There s only one solution. Vote them out in 2016.Photo credit KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images