[MarkL]

If the government were to try to "confiscate" the voluntary retirement accounts of millions of people, it would wind up in the courts for so long it's not even funny. It took a constitutional amendment to get an income tax. It should take another one to institute a mandatory "government retirement account" contribution, but they'll probably counter with "we didn't need to do it with social security, so we don't need to do it now."

But confiscating private retirement accounts is different than an "income tax." This is a direct "wealth tax," and as such, the US constitution doesn't grant the federal government the right to do such a thing. The only way that I can see with them justifying it would be that since these accounts were made up of funds that were never taxed in the first place (except for medicare and FICA), they MIGHT just get away with it. Of course, that would fail on ROTH IRAs. But it seems to me that they COULD force you to pay tax on it, but NOT force you to transfer it to the government's coffers. They would have to give you the chance to opt out of the plan, and that would destroy their ability to create the GRAs.

Plus, since the government only "invests" in government "paper," i.e. IOUs, they would either have to take direct stock ownership in the companies that people hold as investments in their retirement accounts (again, something that should be unconstitutional, but given the "bail-outs," that's out the window), or they would have to sell off the shares of stocks and mutual funds, causing the value of every publicly traded company in the country, possibly the world, to tank - because what happens when you've got a lot of sellers, but no buyers?

As usual, the dems float an idea that would be disasterous, but they think that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It must be nice to live in a world where there are no consequences to one's actions.

Mark

[DivaDelMar]

I’d like to note that it didn’t take a constitutional amendment to create the socialist insecurity system. That was supposed to be a government retirement account. That little experiment has generated a 60 trillion dollar unfunded liability. Time to face facts: The New Deal nullified the Constitution.

Did it take a constitutional amendment to confiscate gold? Was gold purchased with previously taxed dollars? Why is a traditional or roth IRA any different?

The idiots who are now in charge will embrace this. I don’t think there are enought self-sufficient, self-actuating individuals remaining to fight it. Don’t believe it can’t or won’t happen here. The COMMUNISTS are in charge and they will do this in the name of “protecting us” and the sheople will embrace it.