"Wait a tic...blimey, this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought."
Posted on 06/16/2008 2:58:58 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
With most Americans doing a lousy job saving for their Golden Years, Barack Obama says the government has to step in.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee proposes that companies that don't offer retirement plans be required to set up and automatically enroll employees in IRA-type_accounts. In addition, companies with plans would have to automatically enroll workers in them.
Employees, unless they opt out, would have 3% of their salary directly deposited into the retirement account, typically into a low-cost index mutual fund. And the government would match part of the money certain employees contribute.
"These steps will put a secure retirement within the reach of millions of Americans," Obama said Friday at a campaign stop in Ohio.
The plan, which has received relatively little attention on the campaign trail, is likely to be controversial in some quarters. It would help some of the 78 million people without retirement plans at work save. But the proposal also would impose new mandates on businesses, while costing the federal government $18.8 billion a year, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan policy group in Washington D.C.
Government-funded match
To encourage low- and moderate-income people to stay in the plan, Obama would provide a federally-funded match for families earning less than $75,000 who set aside money in a retirement account at work or on their own. The government match - 50% of up to $1,000 in savings - would be a refundable tax credit directly deposited into an IRA.
Obama, like an increasing number of companies and policy experts, is jumping on the auto-enrollment bandwagon. As 401(k)s increasingly become workers' sole source of retirement savings, employers are under more pressure to ensure employees contribute to the plans. More than one in three companies now automatically enroll workers in 401(k)s, according to Hewitt Associates.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Government, is there anything it can’t do?
There is no such thing to me as “Government” when you’re talking about money, how far would he get if he said the TAXPAYERS will step in and pay for that?
I love it when people say the “government” can afford it, the “government” has a lot of money. Invariably I will ask these people “where does the government get their money?” Amazingly this question leaves most puzzled. I kid you not.
I try and stay away from these people, but they keep popping up! The most ardent lefties I meet are invariably the dumbest people I’ve ever met, at least when it comes to the “government”.
All this on top of our Social Security taxes? How wonderful! Why thank you Mr. Obama - please take away more of our income (what do you want to bet that this will become a “requirement” instead of an option).
The Gov't gives you the match, so what strings will come with it. We have been down this road before.
The problem with this is it would require additional cuts or more taxes to come up with the funds for the match. Where as GWB's proposal for fixing SSI was to take some of your taxes, transfer them to a fund in your name, grow them at market rates, and have the built in feature of transference upon death vs. the annuity scheme that SSI currently is.
This fixes nothing which is what is part of the problem in Washington and the mentality of the Obamaites and the Dem's. Create more boondoggles and fix nothing. Dysfunctional and as stupid as a new set of mag wheels on an old rusted out Muscle car.
Fit the car first!
Government mandates that 3% of our money get taken and put into an account, and government matches it.
That sounds like Bush’s Social Security Privatization plan.
Don’t forget, Obama’s government has 57 states. That’s a 14% increase in federal collections from the states.
Bush's was strictly voluntary. This seems like it's mandatory.
P.S. No pension, minor savings available because I thought putting three kids through college was more important.
“This seems like it’s mandatory”
Yep, call it Marxism. If this guy gets elected,and with the support of Dem majorities in both houses, you will not recognize your country after 4 years. Coast to coast will be a San Fran-like freak show.
Sounds like a nascent privatization of Social Security more or less.
Indeed it was. Your children are better people for having a parent like you who sacrificed to give them a better chance at life. They'll carry that with them forever and, God willing, pass it on to your grandchildren.
The only net differences is that 1) the IRA could now earn interest or experience capital appreciation during the holding period, and 2) if you die before retiring, you'd have an asset to leave to your heirs. As it is now, the gov’t cheers when you die, since your SS contributions are a windfall gain for them.
I try and stay away from these people
In a discussion with a lib some years ago about some econmic matter, the subject is lost from my memory, he asked me, "why doesn't the government just print more money? That would solve the problem". He was dead serious. I just shook my head and walked away.
Some people really are that dumb.
This guy is being fed lines that are just amazing.....
He has no brains to think of these things on his own!
Doesn’t sound much different from the individual social security accounts that republicans have proposed.
My 13 year old granddaughter is already talking about going to Stanford.
The point being Obama opposes taking 3% of the existing social security money and putting it in a private account. But he is proposing to take some percent of the federal money (which might as well be social security taxes) and putting into a private account, IF the person matches it with their own money.
Also, Obama's plan is not mandatory either. It just reverses the result of inaction. In his plan, you can opt out, but you have to do so explicitly.
Which reminds me that we already I think did this, or something similar. I thought that a couple years ago we changed the laws so that employers are supposed to assume new employees want to participate in retirement plans, and the employee has to opt out.
It will be if they return the favor. Otherwise, it was probably a poor investment :-)
McCain's a socialist too. And, we're a very socialist nation:
President Roosevelt signs Social Security Act, at approximately 3:30 pm EST on 14 August 1935.
What's a little bit more? /s
It absolutely was.....you could have put up to 2% into a private fund. There was nothing mandatory about it. Where was it stated that you HAD to be a part of the program?
Deciding who to vote for in this election is like trying to decide which urinal to lick.
Not to fear; He will put all the money into that BIG LOCKBOX!
I explained what wasn’t voluntary — the money was social security money, so they took it from you whether you signed up or not. The only voluntary part was whether you put the money into the SS trust fund or into a private account.
Of course, as I also said, it wasn’t NEW tax, it was the existing tax you already were losing. But another way to privatize would have been to let you keep your own money and do what you want with it, and Bush didn’t do that.
And as I said, Obama’s plan isn’t mandatory either, because you can opt out.
"Wait a tic...blimey, this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought."
Gubmint, gubmint, gubmint! The man is a loon.
And he says the payments will go to ‘certain’ people. This on top of the billions he wants us to spend to end world poverty all of which will go to the pockets of dictators and UN.
Geez...every time McCain pisses me off with some retarded statement, Hussein will do something that reminds me how fully inept HE would be as President.
What the HELL is Social Security then?
Oh, I forgot, it's just the bank account Uncle Sugar uses to keep the country afloat.
Okay, now, what was the reason for opposing President Bush's suggestion that 4% of the 12.4% of your income already paid to Social Security be deposited into a retirement account?
Dubya's just a dummy from Texas that just wants to enrich all his oil buddies. Obamination is a caring, loving soul from the tough streets of Chicago who wants to help "the little people".
No problem, right?
Just stick it to the American taxpayers.
They don't need their money as much as your voters do, now do they?
Let's take some more of peoples' earnings and mandate that they be put under government control. This will definitely improve everything, since we all know that the problem with "Social Security I" was that people didn't put in enough money, people weren't required to do it, and the system was lacking government control over the funds.
Screw the Black Muslin Socialist. I have a corner post smarter than he is.
Buying votes from the lazy @ssed masses.
Don’t we already have this kind of thing? I think the concept is called Social Security.
Is your corner post black? The other three post should be a brown, a yellow and a white. You had better be politically correct, you know.
“The most ardent lefties I meet are invariably the dumbest people I’ve ever met,”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pardon me but Duh! That is rather like saying that obese people have the largest waistlines of all the people you have ever met.
In fairness you should say that your statement actually applies only to voters who support the leftists, leftist politicians themselves may be intelligent but they advocate stupid leftist schemes they know to be absurd simply as a way to gain power. Even AlGore is not really as stupid as he may seem, after all he has figured out how to make a huge fortune from a non-existent threat! Gore probably knows in his heart that man-made global warming is as real as hen’s teeth and frog’s feathers.
“America is greatest country in the world. And I’m going to change it.”
On the other hand, the government could stop punishing people for actually trying to save and invest money... do away with capital gains, the death tax, etc.
Just a thought, Mr. Obama...
You are not alone, Sacajaweau. We are in the same boat. Self-employed solo architect, raised 4 children, thought educating them way more important than anything else, but made too much to qualify for aid, but not enough to pay tuitions and save at the same time.
All those years, the tax laws kept changing on us, and we never could plan ahead. They took income averaging away from us, so we had to save during good building years so we could manage during the lean ones. Every time we got ahead, some big change came along, and there went most of the savings.
My dear husband now has Parkinson’s, but is terrified to stop working part-time, for he has seen how quickly the gov can change it’s mind and re-write the “rules”. When he had a Parkinson’s related fall 7 weeks ago, and broke his hip badly, he really went downhill emotionally. He was very depressed at the thought of being unable to work, and becoming dependent on his children, all of whom are scrambling to raise their own families, keep gainfully employed, etc...
We are in a fine fix, aren’t we.
I fear for our children’s future more than our own, however. I know that the social security we get is taken right out of their paychecks, and they probably will be taxed right out of establishing any savings of their own to pay for us...
Will he put the money in a...lock box?
Watch out; someone around here will call you a bum like they did me, for being on SS and not having savings due to raising kids, like me. SS recipients, even though we paid into it for 40 years, are not liked here.
I guess that I am going to have to paint it as it is white now. I call it whitey.
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