CNN’s Dana Bash was the only host of a Sunday morning political show to ask a Republican lawmaker or official about a potential tax reform provision that is reportedly being considered that would limit pre-tax 401(k) contributions. Such a move would limit how much money millions of middle class Americans would be able to set aside for retirement.

The New York Times reported that Republicans are considering a proposal to put limits on how much American workers can contribute to their 401(k) accounts before taxes, potentially decreasing caps from $18,000 a year (or $24,000 for workers over 50) to “as low as $2,400.” The Times noted that this move would likely cause “a vocal backlash from middle-class workers who save heavily in such retirement accounts.” As CNBC reported in 2015, over 13 million people have 401(k) retirement plans.

While several Republican lawmakers and officials made the rounds on the Sunday morning political shows to discuss tax reform, Bash was the only host to ask one of them about the 401(k) proposal. In an interview with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on State of the Union, Bash asked what he plans to do if Republicans were to take this path, which, she pointed out, “could mean higher taxes on the middle class.”

From the October 22 Edition of CNN’s State of the Union:

DANA BASH (HOST): Let me just drill down on one other aspect of taxes, and that is The New York Times reported this week that House Republicans are considering a plan to sharply reduce the amount of income that Americans can save in tax-deferred 401(k) accounts. If a Republican -- if your fellow Republicans in the House were to push to go down this path, it could mean higher taxes on the middle class. What do you want to do? Is this a nonstarter in the Senate?

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Well, look, we're just beginning the process of actually crafting the bills that will be crafted in the Ways and Means Committee in the House, the Finance Committee in the Senate. It's way too early to predict the various details. But I can tell you, the goal here, the goal here is to get middle class taxes down, to prevent job exportation, -- which our current business taxes really encourage people to go offshore -- and to produce more jobs and opportunity for the American people. That's the goal. The details will be hashed out in these two committees in the coming weeks.

Juan Williams also appeared to allude to the proposal on Fox News Sunday.

DANA PERINO (HOST): If the Republicans add a millionaires tax, what would [Sens. Chuck] Schumer [D-NY] and Elizabeth Warren [D-MA] complain about?

JUAN WILLIAMS: Still, I think Congressman [Jason] Chaffetz is onto something here, it’s still -- we don’t have a revenue source screen that would really offset the cost of the tax cuts. Let me just say, overall this was supposed to be about tax reform. Apparently, that’s not the issue now, we’re just on to tax cuts. So the argument coming from the Democrats is this really is disportionately beneficial to the very rich. You add the fourth bracket, but it still does nothing in terms of offsetting things like doing away with state and local deductions.

PERINO: That’s a big issue.

WILLIAMS: That’s a huge -- how about home mortgage. Imagine, no home mortgage deduction? Well, I’m sure K Street --

PERINO: Well, they're not saying that.

WILLIAMS: Well, they are making the case. And then, also less in terms of your retirement contribution. So these are things that would squeeze the middle class.

The proposal, however, was not mentioned at all on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CBS’ Face the Nation, or NBC’s Meet the Press.

Methodology

Media Matters searched SnapStream for “401” as well as the words “four,” “oh, “one,” and all iterations of the word “retire” on the October 22 editions of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CBS’ Face the Nation, Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Fox News Sunday, NBC’s Meet the Press, and CNN’s State of the Union.