We wish it grew there
Posted on 05/16/2011 8:08:46 AM PDT by Qbert
The Obama administration will begin to tap federal retiree programs to help fund operations after the government loses its ability Monday to borrow more money from the public, adding urgency to efforts in Washington to fashion a compromise over the debt.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has warned for months that the government would soon hit the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling — a legal limit on how much it can borrow. With the government poised to reach that limit Monday, Geithner is undertaking special measures in an effort to postpone the day when he will no longer have enough funds to pay all of the government’s bills.
Geithner, who has already suspended a program that helps state and local government manage their finances, will begin to borrow from retirement funds for federal workers. The measure won’t have an impact on retirees because the Treasury is legally required to reimburse the program.
The maneuver buys Geithner only a few months of time. If Congress does not vote by Aug. 2 to raise the debt limit, Geithner says the government is likely to default on some of its obligations, which he says would cause enormous economic harm and the suspension of government services, including the disbursal of Social Security funds.
[Snip]
Administration officials have expressed interest in raising the amount that federal employees contribute to their pensions, sources told The Washington Post.
The Republicans have suggested that the civilian workforce contribute more to its retirement in the future, effectively trimming 5 percent from salaries. The administration has not been willing to go that far in talks being led by Vice President Biden.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Make this a permanent feature of our budgeting process.
So the Treasury can overstep congress and do this?
How about all the money 'I paid in' ?? It's not there? I just want the bad gubmnt to pay me my entitlements, not charge the taxpayers. I thought cutting PP and ACORN would save enough money for that, no ??? :)
They symbolically repealed Obama-care, then symbolically repealed medicare.
What about the pesions of Congressmen? Will they be touched?
“The result will be that the U.S. will have exactly the same debt total due to paper obligations of the U.S., but IN ADDITION will owe reimbursement to the pension fund...Am I missing something about how all this works?”
It’s government accounting- they play by different rules. (This is older, but may still be relevant):
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04526.pdf
This article is a hoot!
First it says “The measure won’t have an impact on retirees because the Treasury is legally required to reimburse the program.” AND then immediately after it says
IF IT defaults it won’t be able to meet it’s obligations!
I think that is exactly what it is.
A friend in the Army Corp of Engineers told me a couple of weeks ago that the federal government tried to do this same thing back in ‘95 or ‘96 when we had the same government budget limit issue, and he said the courts slapped the fed’s attempt down and prevented them from doing this. If that’s the case, then a legal precedent was set that I would think should hold up again this time. Thoughts?
First they came for the Social Security Funds and no one complained.
Then they came for the Federal Retirement Funds and no one complained.
Then they will come for the private retirement funds and no one complained because there was no one left.
Welcome to the Dark Ages people when everyone and everything belonged to either the local Laird of monastery.
take a close look at all the “privileges’ the local Laird had up to an including to the first night in the new wife's wedding bed.
It has happened before and will happen again.
I have no doubt they would if they could. But I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of how they would do it without outright rebellion
Most 401 (k) are employer run and I can't see the US government mandating them to transfer the value of the stocks, bonds to the treasury
I could see them asking companies to let the government borrow against the value, but again it would be political suicide
“Most 401 (k) are employer run and I can’t see the US government mandating them to transfer the value of the stocks, bonds to the treasury
I could see them asking companies to let the government borrow against the value, but again it would be political suicide”
I wonder if there’s anything lurking around in the FinReg law that they would attempt to use. (Nobody ever seems to talk about that monstrosity anymore).
I have seen this Obama government do a lot of things I never thought I would see. Maybe it’s time to pull our money out of the 401K
In my darkest moments, I think that is precisely what Obama will do in the end:
He won't do it to re-shape society.
He won't do it cut the deficit.
He won't do it to increase spending.
He won't do it as part of some political or electoral strategy.
On my darkest days, I think Obama will do something like that because he wants this country utterly destroyed by a revolution. We would be shoved off the world stage for years and all of the anti-Western Civilization forces which Obama loves so much would move up in the world. All he has to do is try to seize our retirement assets and then this country all falls apart.
He doesn't have to successfully grab the assets.
He doesn't have to win the war.
He doesn't have to hold on to political power.
But he would win if he destroyed us, and this is one of the ways he could do that.
read this discussion (dating from 2006) and you will be wiser than your friend
http://www.tsptalk.com/mb/showthread.php?t=2664
However, what happened in the past, under a different Congress and a different presdient....is not guaranteed to happen again under the lawless arrogant contemptuous fobs now running the USA into the ground. These effete foreign- raised snobs like obama and geither would love to remake America because they currently hate Americans
The bailout was temporary, now this.....delay tactics until the real planned pillage of Vampire-Care begins.
So now the Feds own base can feel the pain, of having Obama and his inept Cabal of Czars taking the money from them.
Maybe the Dems will begin to see the Implosion coming, from Obama’s Mismanagement of the US economy.
This is assuming the federal worker is smart enough to know who to blame...
More than likely "the rich" will be blamed...
It will be really simple and people will laud them for it. They will "protect" private retirement by requiring all qualified plans to be invested (say 25% or 50%) in "safe" treasuries. Nobody will ever have to worry about losing their retirement to "evil" financial institutions.
IOU’s to replace the IOU’s that are in those retirement funds instead of the cash they already stole.
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