Monday, November 10, 2008

More on the Government Strengthening and Protecting Confiscating Your 401k

November 10, 2008
More on the Government Strengthening and Protecting Confiscating Your 401k
Posted by Karen DeCoster at November 10, 2008 11:59 AM


It did make the mainstream news. Karen McMahan, the author, makes a really important point:

Currently, 401(k) plans allow Americans to invest pretax money and their employers match up to a defined percentage, which not only increases workers’ retirement savings but also reduces their annual income tax. The balances are fully inheritable, subject to income tax, meaning workers pass on their wealth to their heirs, unlike Social Security. Even when they leave an employer and go to one that doesn’t offer a 401(k) or pension, workers can transfer their balances to a qualified IRA.

Then there's this:

...All workers would have 5 percent of their annual pay deducted from their paychecks and deposited to the GRA. They would still be paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, as would the employers. The GRA contribution would be shared equally by the worker and the employee. Employers no longer would be able to write off their contributions. Any capital gains would be taxable year-on-year.

...With a GRA, workers could bequeath only half of their account balances to their heirs, unlike full balances from existing 401(k) and IRA accounts. For workers who die after retiring, they could bequeath just their own contributions plus the interest but minus any benefits received and minus the employer contributions.


The government will try to pass this off as a program to benefit the poor and middle class. They will use class envy - target the "rich" - to try and get the masses on board with the confiscation. One of the main proponents of this mass confiscation and redistribution said:

In a radio interview with Kirby Wilbur in Seattle on Oct. 27, 2008, Ghilarducci explained that her proposal doesn’t eliminate the tax breaks, rather, “I’m just rearranging the tax breaks that are available now for 401(k)s and spreading — spreading the wealth.”

...Another justification for Ghilarducci’s plan is to eliminate investment risk. In her testimony, Ghilarducci said, “humans often lack the foresight, discipline, and investing skills required to sustain a savings plan.” She cited the 2004 HSBC global survey on the Future of Retirement, in which she claimed that “a third of Americans wanted the government to force them to save more for retirement.” [My note: She lied, because the author reports that the "survey actually reported was that 33 percent of Americans wanted the government to “enforce additional private savings,” a vastly different meaning than mandatory government-run savings."]


The insane crackpot, Ghilarducci, said that “humans often lack the foresight, discipline, and investing skills required to sustain a savings plan.” Therefore, this Communist-Elitist Pig will make your decisions for you. Robert Greenstein, another social engineering Communist, and executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says that there is no reason whatsoever that people who pay no income tax should get *no tax incentives* at all. By the very definition of "tax incentive," that statement makes a mockery of the fact that words actually have meanings. The propaganda is starting to fly, and these are the agents who will help spread the envy and filth (and your money). Then Greenstein adds:

“Moving to refundable tax credits for promoting socially worthwhile activities would be an important step toward enhancing progressivity in the tax code in a way that would improve economic efficiency and performance at the same time,” Greenstein said...

If you can really stand it, go to the part of the article with the headline "Income and Wealth Redistribution." The democrats are making it very clear that they want to promote and move forward with a very progressive, "spread the wealth," redistributionist agenda. Lastly, for all the libertarians in the blogosphere who suggested they supported an Obama presidency as the "far better of the two evils" because he represented some hope for quasi-libertarian changes, here are some snippets from a 2001 interview with Brack Obama.

Should Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency, congressional Democrats might have stronger support for their “spreading the wealth” agenda. On Oct. 27, the American Thinker posted a video of an interview with Obama on public radio station WBEZ-FM from 2001.

In the interview, Obama said, “The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.” The Constitution says only what “the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you,” and Obama added that the Warren Court wasn’t that radical.

Although in 2001 Obama said he was not “optimistic about bringing major redistributive change through the courts,” as president, he would likely have the opportunity to appoint one or more Supreme Court justices.

“The real tragedy of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused that I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change,” Obama said.

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