Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com October 12, 2010
The government is preparing to seize the private 401(k) pensions of millions of Americans while enforcing an additional 5 per cent payroll tax as part of a new bailout program that will empower the Social Security Administration to redistribute pension funds in a frightening example of big government gone wild.
Public pension plans have been so aggressively looted already by the government that cities and counties face a $574 billion funding gap, according to a CNBC report.
That black hole is set to be filled by a new proposal that will “fairly” distribute taxpayer-funded pensions to everyone, by confiscating the private wealth of millions of Americans. Its proponents express staggering arrogance in thinking that they can just steal money people have worked for decades to accrue as if it’s their own.
Not only would the government confiscate 401(k) pensions, it would also impose a mandatory 5 per cent payroll tax payable by everyone, according to a hearing chaired last week by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
“This would, of course, be a sister government ponzi scheme working in tandem with Social Security, the primary purpose being to give big government politicians additional taxpayer funds to raid to pay for their out-of-control spending,” writes Connie Hair.
The hearing was a platform for advocates of Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs), a program authored by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York. Back in November 2008, Ghilarducci testified to Congress that 401(k)s and IRAs should be confiscated and converted into universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.
“You don’t hold hearings on something you don’t intend to do,” points out the Market Ticker blog. “I hate it when I’m right. I hate it even more when tens of millions of Americans are going to get reamed to pay for the crimes of the handful on Wall Street, and their crony enablers in Washington DC.”
The GRAs would be enforced by means of a mandatory savings tax equating to 5 per cent of an individual’s annual paycheck deposited to the GRA. Social Security and Medicare taxes would still be payable, employers would no longer would be able to write off their contributions and capital gains would be taxable year-on-year. In addition, workers could bequeath only half of their account balances to their heirs, unlike full balances from existing 401(k) and IRA accounts.
During a Seattle radio interview in October 2008, Ghilarducci explained the motive behind the plan, stating, “I’m just rearranging the tax breaks that are available now for 401(k)s and spreading – spreading the wealth” (emphasis mine).
However, as we painfully learned in the immediate aftermath of the original $700 million dollar bailout, which was originally sold on the basis that it would be used to pay off bad debt, governments that propose “spreading the wealth” under socialist-style financial reforms almost always collect the wealth under the pretext of being the saviors before greedily hoarding it all for themselves.
The GRA program is being pushed by the Economic Policy Institute, an organization housed on the third floor of the building occupied by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress is a think tank headed by Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff John D. Podesta, who was also head of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team after the 2008 election.
In preparing to seize private pensions, the United States is going the same way as Argentinean government, which in 2008 nationalized the country’s private pension plans, known as AFJPs, confiscating the wealth of millions.
“We have no doubt that here the right to private property is being violated. Not just for us but for society and the world, this is a clear confiscation,” said opposition Radical Party’s Ernesto Sanz at the time.
How will Americans react to having not only their wealth but their nest egg for future generations brazenly confiscated by the government in one fell swoop? If this doesn’t prompt widespread rioting and civil disobedience in America on behalf of the besieged middle class then nothing will.
Don’t be under any illusions, if you don’t have a private pension and think this won’t affect you – think again. Once the pretext has been created that the state can simply confiscate privately earned wealth, they can then come after anything, your gold, your home, your kids and eventually your very freedom. Once the vampire of big government gets a taste for blood, the teeth will only sink in further, and America’s resemblance to third world tyrannies will rapidly accelerate.
“...being necessary for the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!”
Touch the 401Ks and pensions and it’s war.
N.O.
The odds of this happening now are virtually zero.
Obama needs to be arrested, tried for treason and brought to justice. He is a cancer on America that needs to be removed.
I don’t think thInk there’s much chance of this passing with the new Congress coming in. But, I could be suprised.
There’s going to be so much free stuff from the govt. that you won’t NEED your 401K! Govt. will provide!
If they are planning to try this, they had better get busy:
The deadline for the unions to get their act together on their pensions is 12/15/10. These funds would be the down payment on that. They are going to run out of time, I do believe.
And the chance of the new congress doing this is exactly ZERO.
Bttt
All your 401k belong to us
Gnip
There will be open season on liberals if this happens......................
Ping
This is NOT going to happen. It has been refuted.
It is now IRRELEVANT.
Victims of Lawful Plunder
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or REVOLUTIONARY means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws!
Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution — some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.
The Results of Legal Plunder
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
(CAPS mine)
These economic terrorists/plunderers need to be brought up on treason charges.
Life, liberty and the pursuit and destruction of totalitarians.
The citizenry of this country have been Socialized by government (federal, state, and local) to allow the confiscation of huge amounts of wealth on an annual basis with barely a word uttered. If government can get away with stealing the wealth that people people are creating now what is to prevent them from taking their retirement, also????
If my 401K is stolen by these, unfit to breath our air, communists in unions and the democrat party I will lose my freedom because there will be some of the aforementioned sub-human pigs who will no longer be breathing our air.
The theft of our property should bring on another American Revolution.
Scenario:
Public pensions and Union pensions collapse.
The government will use the well worn excuse of FAIRNESS as a way of sharing/spreading wealth from the savers to the leeches by offering EVERYONE a guaranteed 3% return on all money currently in 401 k’s IF the government is allowed to take control.
The media will show endless stories of grandma and Freddy the Fender fixer eating out of a dumpster because his Ford pension has collapsed.
The sheeple will DEMAND that something be done and then will MEEKLY go along with the proposal.
Many/not all who are against this proposal will be trying to hold on to what wealth they have left rather than do the right thing......replay 1776 all over again.
Government always takes in increments.
JMO...
I hope they try. That should scare even the brain dead middle-class.
The simple truth is that we should repeal all legislation that gives unions their special powers. As the writer points out, they have been destructive in the private sector as well as the public sector.
Another solution would be for the next conservative President to do away with public service employee unions. JFK made them possible with an executive order.