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 ...
“The most ardent lefties I meet are invariably the dumbest people I’ve ever met,”
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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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