Freedom Line Blog

Criticism of yesterday’s Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision is already pioneering new realms of intellectual dishonesty and irrationality.  In one commentary that seems to be maintaining particular inertia on the Internet, Mother Jones labels the Hobby Lobby organization hypocritical because its retirement plan invests in contraceptive manufacturers.

Fortunately, Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform provides a welcome antibiotic.  Specifically, he rebuts the Mother Jones commentary, explaining in clear terms the nature of such retirement plans and the weakness of the Mother Jones assertion:

401(k) plans are directed and invested by employees, not by employers. It’s the Hobby Lobby employees that would be disenfranchised by the twisted logic employed by Redden and Ungar here.  They are the ones–not their bosses–who choose which mutual funds to invest in.  This is true both of the employee’s elective deferral and the employer’s match.  The menu of choices is primarily provided not by the Hobby Lobby employers, but by the 401(k) plan administrator, who helps select a wide menu of mutual fund (and, increasingly, exchange traded fund) choices so that the fiduciary obligations of the plan are met.”

It’s a brief, straightforward piece that is well worth taking a moment to read and share with others.