Third worlders in Congress

There’s an article this morning in the Wall Street Journal about Christina Kirschner, the peronist President in Argentina who was funded by admitted socialist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in her bid for the Presidency, announcing yesterday that she was “nationalizing the private pension system” to fund her vast social programs.

If Congress approves this property grab, $30 billion in individually held retirement accounts — think 401(k)s — managed by private pension funds will become government property.

That the state could seize retirement savings no doubt seems outrageous to Americans. But it is a predictable development in a country where government intervention in the financial system is the norm.

Whew! At least it’s not us, and it could never happen here…that’s what you’re thinking, right? Well, how about taking a look at this from Ed Morrissey;

So why are Democrats now looking to partially nationalize existing 401(k) plans into the exact same kind of private/public pension system?

Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-California, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.

See, one of the biggest benefits of George Bush’s tax breaks was the increased contributions to 401ks and IRAs. That benefitted the middle class as much as the marginal tax rate reductions and made us an investor class and independent. Before George Bush, hardly anyone could survive on the anemic contribution amounts we were allowed – $2000/year into IRAs, for pete’s sake. And since Bush coerced Congress into making those permanent in 2006, the Democrats have been looking for a way to move us back into their fold.

So they plan on acting like third world peronist Christina Kirschner. Found a reason to vote for McCain yet?

Category: Politics