America is headed for a retirement crisis—too many people have no significant retirement savings and no pension and will have to rely almost entirely on Social Security benefits that Republicans are constantly trying to cut. You know that the Republican-controlled Congress isn’t going to do anything to fix it, so it’s fallen to cities, towns, and states to try to do something to prevent the disaster we can see approaching us in slow motion. But now, that same Republican-controlled Congress and Donald Trump have teamed up to roll back the ability of cities and towns to protect their future retirees, Bryce Covert reports:

… state and local governments have started setting up auto-IRA savings accounts for private sector workers. Unless a worker opted out, he would get automatically enrolled in such an account, allowing him to save some of his money for retirement.

But there was a question as to whether these accounts ran afoul of federal law. So in August of last year, President Obama finalized a rule that cleared the way for the establishment of these plans and clarified that they wouldn’t conflict with strict rules that apply to pension and retirement plans. That allowed cities and states to move forward.

Under the Congressional Review Act, Congress recently voted to undo Obama’s protections for cities and counties that set up these accounts. On Thursday, Trump put his signature on it, making it official.

States could be next, because why stop at screwing some workers when you could do so much more damage? Combine this with the eternal Republican plans to gut Social Security, and the United States could truly be a nation of senior citizens faced with the choice of working until they drop dead on the job or living on one can of cat food a day.

Laura Clawson is a Daily Kos contributing editor since December 2006. Labor editor since 2011.