A report released Wednesday by the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates that the Department of Labor’s proposed “fiduciary rule” could cost middle-class Americans $80 billion dollars in lost savings over 10 years. Currently, the rule that would clamp down on the kind of investing advice many Americans could receive from financial advisors is being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget. Obama’s “reforms,” we wrote last April when the rule was first introduced, “will create a class of haves and of have nots, as the regulation will impede the ability for the middle class to talk to a financial advisor.”

But it’s even more condescending than that, wrote CEI Senior Fellow John Berlau. The Department of Labor is assuming Americans are too ignorant to manage their own finances, or even know when advice from a financial advisor is sound. Let us humbly submit that this kind of thinking was prevalent in the early 2000s and contributed to the 2008 housing collapse.

Instead, the “experts” in the government want to control the market through everyone’s personal savings — even though the government discouraged savings for years by dropping interest rates to zero. Government controlled finances! What could go wrong? Currently, both Democrats and Republicans express skepticism over this rule. Through using the Department of Labor, Berlau wrote, Obama is making an end run around the Securities and Exchange Commission to create Obama Wealth Management Bank.