A lot of hard working individuals have set aside money for retirement only to watch those investments lose their value over the last few years. Due to the penalties and taxes that will be assessed, non-retirees will not withdraw from those funds, so they watch them dwindle, meanwhile, they struggle along in this tough economy to make ends meet. If those penalties and fees were waived people might just tap into that money and boost their spending a bit. As an example, if I had access to my retirement I might take a vacation, or purchase a new car to replace the beater with 150 thousand miles that I am wasting money repairing, I might even just pay student loans, which would free up more monthly money to spend on the weak economy. I imagine that would be the same for a lot of families.



