Monday, November 1, 2010

Democrats Propose Guaranteed Retirement Accounts by Raiding Your 401(K)

It would seem the next great abuse perpetrated by the federal government may come in a lame duck session of congress this fall.  The form that this new abuse of power will take is in the context of our federal government's potential plans to seize private 401(k) and IRA plans to fund government controlled "Guaranteed Retirement Accounts" in which to disburse money to retired recipients.  This is proposed to be a supplement to the current social security program, and indeed is intended to be managed by the same Social Security Administration.

The main, if not explicitly stated, purpose of these Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRA's) is to fund the collapsing union pension funds with this un-Constitutional confiscation and redistribution of monies from private citizens' retirement accounts such as 401(k)'s and IRA's.

This plan was originally proposed by Professor Theresa Ghilarducci, an economist at the New School for Social Research in New York several years ago.  The Obama administration seems willing to move forward with this plan, and indeed Vice President Joe Biden floated the idea to the public for GRA's back in February's “Middle Class” report. 

Ghilarducci's proposal calls for eliminating the 401(k) plan system and replacing it with a government-run pension plan funded by employee contributions.  Her plan claims that participants would be guaranteed an inflation-beating return and a lifetime stream of income, accordingly.

"What people want from their pensions is guaranteed income for life," Ghilarducci said when her plan was first brought to light in 2008.  I would submit to Ms. Ghilarducci that what people really want is for the federal government to NOT confiscate money they earned and have it "managed" and redistributed by a federal government that has repeatedly and without exception proven that they are incapable of managing any program with efficiency, and indeed are more likely to create a reasonable chance of insolvency over time for any program under their management.

Ghilarducci's plan would eliminate the tax breaks received for contributing to a 401(k) or an IRA plan thus making the desirability of these plans practically vanish.  The thought behind this idea is that these tax breaks are depriving the federal government of too much revenue.  Far better to redistribute Americans' privately earned and saved retirement accounts and further reward a huge Democratic constituency by keeping their pension funds solvent on the backs of us "greedy" Americans.

If this plan is passed in a lame duck session of congress this fall, it will only serve to show the continued arrogance and disregard the Democrats have towards a vast majority of hard working and responsible American people.  It will also serve to illustrate that the progressive Democrats still have not gotten the message that a majority of Americans have been saying to our government over the course of the last few years.  Finally, it will also give the Republicans one more law to repeal in 2011.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does anybody remember when we had personal responsibility? Is there any chance we could bring that back to our way of life? When does the laziness stop? Why does the government have to be involved in every aspect of our lives?

Darrell Michaels said...

Anonymous, I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I could easily have written your very words. I am hoping a little of that responsibility returns starting tomorrow at the polls.

Matt said...

Personally I'm a little more than angry at the conservative voters who stayed home in the last election because they didn't love McCain enough, or the ones who didn't bother to vote in '06 because they were angry at the wasteful spending of Republicans (nor did they bother to vote those wasteful spenders out in the primary elections), and consoled themselves by saying, "oh, let the Dems take control. We'll vote them out in the next election after they prove themselves even bigger spenders. After all, just how much damage could they do, anyway?"

Unless we take the Senate by a 2/3rds majority, nothing will be repealed until after (or IF) Obama is voted out in '12. And you know they will pull out all the stops and use every crooked trick up their sleeves to keep that from happening. And they have the complicit media on their side...

Good post, T!

Annie said...

I just want to know when the government is going to come and clean my house and vacuum out my car! I mean, if they are "taking care of me" than TAKE CARE OF ME!

Just kidding!

Darrell Michaels said...

Annie! Shhhsssh! Be careful what you ask for! Obama and Reid still have some control! :)

Anonymous said...

I would agree to government getting out of all subsidies. This would include tax deferred accounts (401k's) and interest deductions on homes. If you get rid of the obvious ones, you need to get rid of the others people...