Immigration I Can Support…

Obama Administration Plans to Seize 401(k) Retirement Accounts

Written by Joe Wolverton, II
Wednesday, 05 May 2010 12:45

One aspect of a new and improved federal regulatory scheme is the seizure of 401(k) retirement plans and the subsequent government-administered disbursement of the funds.

In Chapter 3 of the Annual Report on the Middle Class released in February by Vice President Biden and the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, the Obama administration calls for enhancing the “retirement options” for the middle class by imposing “new regulations to improve the transparency and adequacy of 401(k) retirement savings.” 

The plan, as sketched in the 43-page document, calls for the creation of something called “Guaranteed Retirement Accounts” (GRAs). Biden slyly shifts the onus for the idea through weasel words typical of the federal government: “Some have suggested the creation of Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs), which would give workers a simple way to invest a portion of their retirement savings in an account that was free of inflation and market risk, and in some versions under discussion, would guarantee a specified real return above the rate of inflation.”

These accounts would be “free of inflation and market risk” because they would be under the direct and absolute control of the federal bureaucracy. There would be no risk because the funds would no longer be moored to the free market and subject to the fluctuations thereof. Rather, the retirement funds of every hard-working American dependent on a 401(k) for their retirement security would be nationalized and made subject to the whims and will of the executive branch.

The current administration is practiced in the erection of such straw men to deflect their own socialistic and absolutist intent. The record is clear, however, and since the day of his inauguration, Barack Obama and his congressional co-conspirators have consistently and unapologetically set out to systematically nationalize the economy of the United States: first the banks; then the insurance companies; then the auto industry; then healthcare; and now the piece de resistance, the private savings accounts of millions of middle-class Americans. This is an unlawful usurpation of power unprecedented in the annals of American political history.

Coinciding with the publication of the report described above, the Obama White House, together with the Departments of Labor and Treasury, issued a so-called “Request for Information” calling for a detailed analysis of the pros and cons of the “annuitization” of individual 401(k)s. The scheme was set forth in a set of “Proposed Rules” published on February 2, 2010 in the Federal Register.

The document reads in part, “While defined contribution plans have some strengths relative to defined benefit plans, participants in defined contribution plans bear the investment risk because there is no promise by the employer as to the adequacy of the account balance that will be available or the income stream that can be provided after retirement.” And furthermore, “The Agencies are considering whether it would be appropriate for them to take future steps for them to facilitate access to, and use of, lifetime income or other arrangements designed to provide designed to provide a stream of income after retirement.”

The upshot of that clunky prose is that the Obama administration believes that employers cannot be relied upon to adequately manage the 401(k) retirement accounts it provides for their employees, therefore the federal government will relieve them of that responsibility and take sole discretionary control of those funds, thus eliminating the risk of mismanagement. In other words, the Obama administration is planning to divert the “stream of income after retirement” and channel it right through Washington, D.C.

Under the section of the Proposed Rules marked “Background,” the document declares that it is the intent of the agencies considering these changes to further “their efforts to promote retirement security for American workers.” And, to “provide wages that support families, and rise with time and productivity.” Since January 2010, it seems that the only thing rising with time is the likelihood that the economic wealth and might of our once enviable Republic will be methodically eradicated through the exercise by the executive branch of unconstitutional authority over every financial aspect of our nation’s people.

While the time for commenting on these Proposed Rules has passed (May 3, 2010 was the deadline), there is yet time for concerned citizens to contact their elected representatives and voice their opposition to President Obama’s proposed seizure of their 401(k) retirement accounts.

In response to the White House’s pronouncements, many Republicans in the House of Representatives, including GOP leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), have joined together to defend against the federal assault on the financial freedom of the middle class. Boehner and a cadre of colleagues known as the “House GOP Savings Recovery Solutions Group” (an organization founded by Boehner to, “help Americans protect and rebuild their hard-earned savings as quickly as possible while making sure the federal government does not hinder the process”) have written a memo to the secretaries of Labor and Treasury, imploring them to “take no action” to nationalize the retirement security of millions of Americans, representing trillions of dollars. The text of the letter is reprinted below:

Dear Secretaries Solis and Geithner:

As members of the Republican Savings Solutions Group, we write today to express our strong opposition to any proposal to eliminate or federalize private-sector defined contribution pension plans, such as 401(k)s, or impose burdensome new requirements upon the businesses, large and small, who choose to offer these plans to their employees.

In the Annual Report of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, Vice President Biden discussed at length the creation of so-called “Guaranteed Retirement Accounts, (GRAs)” which would provide for protection from “inflation and market risk” and potentially “guarantee a specified real return above the rate of inflation” — presumably at taxpayer expense. In the Report, the Vice President recommended “further study of these issues.”

The Vice President’s comments are troubling, insofar as they come on the heels of testimony before Congress from supporters of GRAs proposing to eliminate the favorable tax treatment currently afforded to 401(k) plans, and instead use those dollars to fund government-invested GRAs into which all employees would be required to contribute a portion of their salary — again, with a government subsidy. These advocates would, essentially, dismantle the present private-sector 401(k) system, replacing it instead with a government-run investment plan, the size and scope of which remain to be seen. This despite data showing that 90 percent of households have a favorable opinion of the existing 401(k)/IRA system.

In light of these facts, we write today to express our opposition in the strongest terms to any effort to “nationalize” the private 401(k) system, or any proposal that would dismantle or disfavor the private 401(k) system in favor of a government-run retirement security regime.

Similarly, and more recently, the Departments of Labor and Treasury have jointly issued a “Request for Information” regarding the “annuitization” of 401(k) plans through “Lifetime Income Options.”  While we appreciate the Departments’ seeking guidance and information from all parties and stakeholders in advance of regulatory activity, we strongly urge that the Departments not proceed with any regulation in this area before they have carefully and thoroughly considered all of the information received.

More specifically, we urge that the Departments take no action to mandate that plan sponsors — often, small businesses — include a “lifetime income” or “annuitization” option if they choose to offer a 401(k) plan to their employees, or that beneficiaries take some or all of their retirement savings in such an option. Data shows that 70 percent of Americans oppose the concept of a mandated annuity or government payout of their 401(k) plan. On a more fundamental level, Congress should not be in the business of choosing “winners” and “losers” among retirement security stakeholders. Instead, we urge the Departments to make it easier for employers to include retirement income solutions in their savings plans and to help workers learn more about the value of their retirement savings as a source of retirement income. Finally, to the extent new mandates and bureaucratic red tape from Washington push small employers out of the business of offering these plans to their employees, we would submit such an effort weakens, rather than strengthens retirement security.

We appreciate your consideration of our views in these important matters and stand ready to work with you and the Administration to promote secure and adequate retirement savings for all Americans.

Sincerely,

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) Rep. John Kline (R-MN) Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV) Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY) Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH) Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN) Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA)

While the goal of Boehner’s group is noble and laudable, the tactics it uses to resist the administration’s attack on middle-class savings seems somehow to justify them, as well. If Congressman Boehner and his allies are genuinely committed to helping “Americans protect and rebuild their hard-earned savings,” then their interest, as well as that of our Republic and the citizens thereof, would be best served by a bold and relentless campaign to drive all branches of the national government to retreat to a place within the borders of their constitutional authority.

BREAKING NEWS FROM REDSTATE:

Caleb Howe just spoke with Chief Andrew Staubitz of the Capitol Police in Phoenix, Arizona. This morning, police and the fire department responded to a call from the first floor of the executive tower of the Arizona Capitol. An employee opened an envelope addressed to Governor Jan Brewer which contained a "powdery white substance." The immediate area and lobby were closed for about thirty minutes, during which time the substance was packaged as evidence of a crime and sent to the State lab for analysis.

Chief Staubitz believes during that thirty minutes the employee who opened the package was likely checked out by paramedics who responded to the call, but he does not believe she required any further medical attention.

The results of the lab analysis are expected in less than 24 hours, and the Capitol Police will be issuing a statement at that time. The police will be working with the FBI in investigating the incident.

How long after the Capitol steps alleged spit incident was it before talking heads were running with the Democrat and Shepard Smith talking point that tea partiers were becoming violent? How many times in the last year, from the town halls through today, has MSNBC had panels and pundits discussing the "violent rhetoric" and increasing danger from the right? Can you imagine if Governor Brewer had declared a Arizona a sanctuary state and then received white powder in the mail? The uproar? The outrage? The utter ALARM!??!

More here.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

The Santa Cruz Riot – Best of the WEB - WSJ

The president warns of violence from "extreme elements", and an example quickly materializes.

By JAMES TARANTO

"In a blunt caution to political friend and foe, President Barack Obama said Saturday that partisan rants and name-calling under the guise of legitimate discourse pose a serious danger to America's democracy, and may incite 'extreme elements' to violence," the Associated Pressreports from Ann Arbor, Mich.

Two thousand miles away, another AP dispatch reports, there occurred an example of exactly what the president was warning about:

Close to 20 businesses were damaged after what started as a peaceful immigrants' rights march in downtown Santa Cruz [Calif.] turned violent, requiring police to call other agencies for help, authorities said.

Police spokesman Zach Friend said an estimated 250 people started marching through the city around 10:30 p.m. Saturday.

It was a harmonious but "unpermitted and unsanctioned event," he said, until some in the crowd started breaking windows and spraying paint on retail shops that line the downtown corridor.

Friend said he wasn't sure if the damage was caused by people marching in support of immigrants' rights, or if the group was "infiltrated by anarchists."

Anarchy signs were spray-painted on some of the buildings.

"They're a group of people who seem to fancy themselves as revolutionaries, but what they really are are a group of morons," Friend said.

You've got to love the way the AP describes this: It started as a peaceful march but "turned violent." It was totally harmonious "until some in the crowd started breaking windows." And the window breakers might have just been infiltrators!

Compare this with the lead paragraph of the AP's March 20 dispatch on the anti-ObamaCare tea-party protests:

House Democrats heard it all Saturday--words of inspiration from President Barack Obama and raucous chants of protests from demonstrators. And at times it was flat-out ugly, including some racial epithets aimed at black members of Congress.

The claims of racial epithets have since been disputed and were never substantiated, but let's give the AP the benefit of the doubt and assume that at the time, the reporter knew of no reason to doubt the word of the congressmen making the claims.

Even so, had the tea-party protesters gotten the Santa Cruz treatment, the AP would have noted that the rally was completely nonviolent, even if it featured some ugly words; that there was no ugliness at all until the protest "turned ugly"; and that the people who (allegedly) shouted the ugly words might well have been infiltrators.

If the Santa Cruz protesters had gotten the tea-party treatment, by contrast, the AP would have described the event simply as a riot and would not have distinguished between the peaceful protesters and the violent few who might be infiltrators anyway. What's more, conservative politicians and commentators would be sounding a constant refrain--echoed by the mainstream media--that politicians are inciting the violence with "antigovernment" statements like this one, reported April 23 by CBS News:

President Obama suggested today that the immigration bill expected to be signed into law in Arizona is a "misguided" piece of legislation that "threatened to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe."

We don't think that journalists should give the Santa Cruz protesters the tea-party treatment or the tea partiers the Santa Cruz treatment. Both sides ought to get the same treatment--fair treatment--from those whose job is to cover the news impartially.

As for Obama, his efforts to demonize the opposition are unseemly and unpresidential. Given the breadth of his policies' unpopularity, they amount to an attack on the majority of Americans. That seems likely they will prove politically unwise as well.

Jihad: the threat just keeps growing

from Dhimmi Watch by Robert

While Obama fiddles.

"The threat keeps growing: List of terrorists in our midst gets longer and longer," an editorial from the New York Daily News, May 1 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

...Hard on the heels of Najibullah Zazi's subway bomb try, the Manhattan U.S. attorney has indicted two Brooklyn men, U.S. citizens, for allegedly conspiring to abet Al Qaeda's communication needs and its capacity to detonate explosives.

Count the arrests of Wesam el-Hanafi and Sabirhan Hasanoff as another victory for America's anti-terror forces, but do not sleep well, for the enemy is determined and dispered [sic] among us.

Even a partial inventory of attempted attacks by radicalized Muslims on these shores puts the threat into terrifying perspective:

• Jose Padilla, arrested in 2002 as the so-called dirty bomber, was convicted of conspiring with Islamic terrorists.
• The Lackawanna Six - Sahim Alwan, Faysal Galab, Shafal Mosed, Yasein Taher, Yahya Goba and Mukhtar al-Bakri - were busted in 2002 and convicted of aiding Osama Bin Laden.
• Ohio truck driver Iyman Faris was charged in 2003 with conspiring to topple the Brooklyn Bridge. He was sentenced to 20 years.
• Eleven men, known as the Virginia jihad network, were charged in 2003 with planning to train at terrorist camps. Nine were U.S. citizens. They were sentenced to prison.
• U.S. citizen James Elshafay admitted plotting in 2004 to blow up the Herald Square station.
• Yassin Araf and Mohmmad Hossein were arrested in Albany in 2004 for trying to buy a grenade launcher to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat. They got 15 years.
• U.S. citizens Umer Hayat and Hamid Hayat, his son, were arrested in California in 2005 after lying to the FBI about Hamid's attendance at an Al Qaeda training camp. They were convicted.
• Four members of terror cell Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh were charged in 2005 with conspiring to attack the Los Angeles airport. Three went to prison, one to a mental facility.
• Michael Reynolds was busted in 2005 for plotting to blow up a Wyoming natural-gas refinery. He was sentenced to 30 years.
• Syed Haaris Ahmed, a Pakistani, and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, an American of Bangladeshi descent, were charged in 2006 with conspiring to make videos for extremists. They were convicted.
• Seven men, including five U.S. citizens, were charged in 2006 with conspiring to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower. Six were convicted.
• Former U.S. sailor Hassan Abujihaad was accused in 2007 of giving locations of Navy ships to a group that supports terrorists. He got 10 years.
• Six New Jersey men were imprisoned in a 2007 conspiracy to attack Fort Dix.
• An American and three others allegedly plotted to bomb fuel lines at JFK. They await trial.
• Christopher Paul, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in 2008 for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. and European targets. He got 20 years.
• Four men were charged in 2009 with plotting to bomb Bronx synagogues. They await trial.
• Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a Jordanian living in Dallas, was charged in 2009 with trying to car-bomb an office tower.
• Michael Finton of Illinois was busted in 2009 in a courthouse bomb plot inspired by American Taliban John Walker Lindh.
• Bryant Neal Vinas of Long Island was busted in 2009 for allegedly giving Al Qaeda information on the subways and Long Island Rail Road.
• Brooklyn-born Betim Kaziu was charged in 2009 with trying to join an Al Qaeda affiliate in hope of killing U.S. troops.
• Twelve Americans were indicted in 2009 for allegedly supporting Al Shabaab, a terror group seeking to overthrow the Somali government.
• Colleen LaRose, aka Jihad Jane, was charged this year with plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist who had depicted the Prophet Mohammed.
• Sharif Mobley, a 26-year-old New Jersey man, was arrested in March in a roundup of Al Qaeda suspects in Yemen.

Zazi admitted he and pals planned to suicide-bomb Grand Central and Times Square subways....

Hmmm. What do all those people have in common? What, oh, what, could it be?

Car bomb in Times Square by Pakistani Taliban?

from BLACKFIVE by blackfive@gmail.com (Pundit Review Radio)

Mr. Roggio at Long War Journal has some potentially very disturbing news if verified. He has sources in the Intel community that believe this was an attempt by elements of the Mehsud group to hit us at home.

A top Pakistani Taliban commander took credit for yesterday's failed car bomb attack in New York City.

Qari Hussain Mehsud, the top bomb maker for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." Qari Hussain made the claim on an audiotape accompanied by images that was released on a YouTube website that calls itself the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel.

The tape has yet to be verified, but US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal believe it is legitimate. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel on YouTube was created on April 30. Officials believe it was created to announce the Times Square attack, and Qari Hussain’s statement was pre-recorded.

The fact that the website and tape were prepared before the attempted bombing lends credence to the idea that the bastards claiming it are responsible. That is a particularly unwelcome development. The only upside is that the idiot making the claim is their top bomb maker and they can't even get a damn bomb to explode. I have made many types of improvised explosives including fertilizer bombs, briefcase bombs, shaped charges out of metal funnels and just about anything else we could think of. The tricky part is setting them off. It seems that the losers in the Taliban haven't managed to use their advanced civilization to generate much in the way of technology.

It is also telling that this attack may have come from the Taliban and not al Qaeda. If they have decided to move their fight out of the Hindu Kush it completely changes the calculus of our war against them. Those who argue we should simply ignore them, now have to contend with the fact that they have decided the battlefield extends to our front yard.

Since our PC government and officials here will do just about anything to avoid saying that our enemies are Muslim, it is left to the Telegraph in the UK to point out that the vehicle was parked in front of the offices of Viacom. Hmmm aren't those the same gutless weasels who failed to even show the likeness of Mohammed on South Park. Wouldn't that be ironic if even failure to do this resulted in a fatwa and a bomb? May 20th is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, don't forget.