text: Outsider,  On the surface this may seem like a good thing but I'm not so sure.  Small businesses should love it, because they won't have to provide a 401K to be competitive with a larger businesses that does have a 401k to attract and keep good workers.  Larger  businesses will likely see in the next go round of cost cost cutting that they can reduce and eventually eliminate their matching contributions to their 401K plan to only finally decide not to offer one at all.  This process could eventually work its way up the ladder to the Fortune 500 companies.  In the end what we end up with is the federal government providing social security, the states providing mandatory ROTH IRAs, and the private sector extricating themselves from the concern of retirement all together.
  
  I am often reminded of the saying, "the road to he11 is paved with good intentions."