Your Retirement Savings May Be Next

Originally found at: GetLiberty.org

By Rick Manning

Could the Democrats in Congress actually be considering confiscating all 401(k), SEP and IRA accounts in exchange for offering Americans a “guaranteed annuity”?

The subject almost seems too far out there to even write about. While it is something that I had heard rumors of, I just couldn’t believe this type of proposal would ever be considered in America. Let alone become part of an active public policy debate.

But when the Wall Street Journal writes on the subject, and the House Republicans on the committee that oversees our nation’s pension system send a letter expressing concern to both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis expressing concern, and then issue a press release on it, it is time to get concerned.

The least damaging scenario is that the Democrats are considering changes to the retirement security system that takes away the tax deductibility of retirement savings in exchange for using those dollars to create a new “guaranteed annuity” that will provide workers with a fixed amount each month. Sounding eerily like the insolvent Social Security system, these accounts would ensure that all people living in America had some small fixed amount of income each month in retirement.

However, this doesn’t really solve the biggest problem facing the Democrats. Their largest donors, organized labor, have a huge pension insolvency problem. Labor unions, both private and public, have severely mismanaged their pension funds. In fact, Moody’s considers many private funds to be in “critical condition”.

Believe it or not, public employee pension funds are in even worse shape. California’s public employee pension fund alone is reported to be underfunded by a whopping $500 billion (that’s half a trillion bucks or $500,000,000,000.00).

So, who has the money to make these colossal failures whole and keep union leaders and their members happy?

That’s right, you guessed it. The poor slob who doesn’t have a guaranteed pension, but has been putting off vacations and eating burger rather than steak for his/her whole career to put 5% of his income into a tax deferred retirement account is the one with the money. Right in his/her tax deferred retirement accounts.

According to the Investment Company Institute, in 2008, $2.4 trillion was invested by private citizens in 401(k) accounts.

Quite a tempting morsel of money if the Democrats in Congress can just convince the American public that they will be getting the security of a GUARANTEED payment every month, rather than dealing with the nasty ups and downs of the market.

As stated at the beginning of this piece, this isn’t yet a proposed law, but is merely a twinkle in the eye of those in the Obama Administration and in Congress who are desperate for cash to fill big labors pension black hole. But every bad idea starts as the twinkle in someone’s eye, and no bad idea seems to be too extreme for this gang of looters who have temporarily been given the keys to the nation.

So beware readers, when you start hearing about the need to avoid retirement risk coming from those who brought you government health care, and are in the process of putting into law a system that would monitor every single one of your financial transactions all under the guise of economic security.

Realize, that if you have been putting money away for your future, that these same jackals are eyeing your nest egg, to feather the nests of their political supporters.

Remember, forewarned is forearmed. So stay vigilant.

Rick Manning is the Director of Communications for Americans for Limited Government, and the former Chief of Staff of the Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Department of Labor that oversees the 401(k) system.

Liberty Lost Forever

By Robert Romano

There is a “good chance” that Obama Administration special counsel John Durham will recommend prosecuting Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Bush Administration officials for torture and other war crimes, as he concludes an inquiry Attorney General Eric Holder appointed him to undertake.

So says the Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz. Last week on FOX News’ "The Journal Editorial Report," Wall Street Journal editors discussed predictions for the New Year. Paul Gigot noted that Durham is due to make his recommendations on whether “CIA and Bush administration officials should be indicted for their antiterror policies.”

Replied Rabinowitz, “There's a good chance he'll make that recommendation.” If he does, it will open an unprecedented Pandora’s Box of political prosecutions against outgoing administration officials for perceived political grievances. And a political bloodbath will be the result.

It is a process that, once unleashed, will be nearly impossible to stop. And it may ultimately lead to subsequent prosecutions made by future administrations. Reciprocity will be invoked on both sides of the political aisle.

In short, what were once mere political disagreements for the people to decide at large when electing their representatives could quickly escalate into a political war. One in which the executive branch unleashes law enforcement against government and military officials who thought they were doing their jobs in enforcing administration policies and prosecuting a war.

In this case, CIA officials who, acting in good faith, waterboarded the mastermind of the September 11th terrorist attacks and extracted information that thwarted another catastrophic attack by al Qaeda will be prosecuted like Nuremberg war criminals — by an American administration.

Deputy U.S. Attorney John Durham was originally chosen by the Bush Administration to investigate the destruction of CIA tapes. Attorney General Eric Holder recently expanded his role to include the investigation of Bush-Era interrogation techniques.

Ultimately, though, the prosecutions will not stop there. Even if that is the limit of what Barack Obama and Eric Holder are able to get away with immediately, it will set a dangerous precedent. Namely, the conduct of war by U.S. personnel will become a prosecutable offense in civilian courts. And politics will never be the same.

As Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson stated yesterday, “Not since the fall of the Roman Republic has a free nation sought to aggressively prosecute outgoing administrations for political grievances. This is a lethal threat to the Constitution. Barack Obama is playing with fire.”

He’s right, of course. If America goes down the rarely-traveled road of political prosecutions, it will change the rules of politics forever. And winning or losing will become a life or death struggle.

In short, it is a path that will almost certainly to tyranny and the loss of liberty.

But, believe it or not, it gets worse. The danger here is also a threat to the very sovereignty of the American nation.

As noted by Americans for Limited Government Assistant Research Director Richard McCarty, even if the Justice Department does not pursue prosecutions of CIA and Bush Administration officials, “it appears that [Barack Obama]’s enabling the international community to pursue [the] indictments. Obama just quietly signed an executive order giving INTERPOL even more immunity.”

Pursuant to the executive order, INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization), which works closely with the International Criminal Court, will no longer have to answer to the U.S. courts or be subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. In addition, Interpol officers will now have some immunity for crimes they commit on U.S. soil.

According to National Review’s Andy McCarthy, “This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.”

McCarthy asks, “Why would we elevate an international police force above American law?” Good question.

Probably to prosecute without any restraint whomever INTERPOL deems to have violated international law. According to an analysis done by ThreatsWatch.org’s Steve Schippert and Clyde Middleton: “[T]his immunity and protection — and elevation above the US Constitution — afforded INTERPOL is likely a precursor to the White House subjecting the United States under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). INTERPOL provides a significant enforcement function for the ICC, just as our FBI provides a significant function for our Department of Justice.”

Predicted Schippert and Middleton, “[T]he next move from President Obama is likely an attempt to dissolve the agreements made between President Bush and other states preventing them from turning over American military forces to the ICC (via INTERPOL) for war crimes or any other prosecutions.”

As McCarthy, McCarty, et al, make clear, it is a tragedy in the making. Barack Obama is prepared to push America to the brink of political civil war to pursue a radical agenda that forbids the exercise of the national right to self-defense by the American people. Unfortunately, the consequences will not be his alone to bear.

For, as John Adams wrote in 1775, “a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever.”

Original posting at ALG

Nearing the year's end..

Some thoughts sent in to a reader's local newspaper.

The close of 2009 is upon us. A year ago; much fanfare, talk of change, and a theme of “Hope” heralded a new administration. The rhetoric had been appealing, and had been whipped into a firestorm by an adoring media, Hollywood crowd, and “entitlement seekers” of many persuasions. As is often the case when “Hope” replaces logic, common sense, and reason, disappointment soon follows. A totalitarian direction, propagating through the past several administrations not only hasn’t been reversed, it is accelerating.

Sharing culpability in this totalitarian quest are the legislative bodies, at both the federal and state levels. Legislative bodies like those of the judiciary, and executive branches, were intended to be taking orders, not issuing them. The government of “We the People” made up of three distinct and separate branches, has always been intended as one of, by, and for “We the People”. Sadly and obviously, this is not the case today. The checks and balances imparted in “Our” Constitution between these three separate branches have been marginalized, trivialized, and ignored. “We the People” are NOT free women, children, and men. When “Our” elected public servants assume their offices and fail to exact the will of “We the People” and the Constitution, which they all swore or affirmed to obey, uphold, and protect, we are no longer a free society.

When overwhelming public outcry for secure borders, no amnesty, increased domestic energy production, no stimulus, no bailouts, no government takeover of the auto industry are crammed down “We the Peoples” throats, we are NOT free. When healthcare is forced upon us, with the beneficiaries being the trial lawyers and big pharmaceutical companies, and the losers being “We the People” who must pay for it, we are NOT free.

When our elected public servants pass laws that benefit themselves, yet subject the citizenry to a lesser quality of life, we have lost our country. It is not a matter of losing our country. It is already gone.

The criminals who were sent by “We the People” to conduct “We the Peoples” business have desecrated OUR Constitution, OUR will, and OUR country.

“We the People” have remedies. We can vote them out. This hardly seems adequate. We don’t wait until any other criminal decides their career is over before taking action. Time, and the money stolen from us, will be used to buy back many among us with gifts, and handouts, paid for by unborn generations. “We the People” can fire them; after all “We the People” hired them. OUR Declaration of Independence gives us explicit recourse for the conditions in which “We the People” currently find ourselves and OUR posterity.

We need not split hairs, any and ALL career politicians must go, if their time in office (formerly called service) is greater than eight or ten years they are part of the problem not the solution. We may throw out a couple of good ones, but chances are slim, and the benefits out weigh the risks. After all random Citizens from off the streets could be inserted and do a better job.

This is OUR country, and it presently is in no condition to be handed down to OUR posterity. “We the People” through OUR negligence and complacency have allowed this to happen. Let us “We the People” make 2010 the year the Republic is restored, and OUR children are saved from the despots, oligarchs, and tyrants who occupy OUR offices, which have always been intended for public servants.

Blaise Dornisch
Elk County Tea Party; Johnsonburg


Well Said Blaise..

When you Shake Hands with the Devil, Healthcare Style

When you Shake Hands with the Devil, Healthcare Style

by Dave Cribbin

When they cut their deal with the Administration the insurance companies rolled the dice and came up snake eyes. They traded away proper insurance underwriting practices in order to capture a larger customer base, one that would be guaranteed through government force. Like their auto company brethren who struck their own Faustian bargains before them, they have come away a several fingers shy!

After promising the insurance companies a government mandate that would force young people under penalty of fines to purchase insurance (not very American sounding, is it?) the administration's minions in the Finance Committee said Oops, we lied. They watered down their mandate, delaying it's start date and reducing the penalties enough as to make it ineffective, leaving the insurance industry hanging out to dry.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to shed a single tear for the insurance companies. The bargain they sought with the Administration was despicable. They know how insurance works and doesn't work, and have played the go along get along game with the government for far too long, instead of being a force for positive change. This time it came back to bite them, and they're going to need stitches to close the wound.

The Government in it's extremely finite wisdom is doing exactly the wrong things to fix the problem of rising health care costs.

A quick history lesson for those who have forgotten. It was the Government's involvement in health care, subsidizing employer sponsored insurance payments by making them tax deductible, in order to cure other problems it created by imposing wage and price controls during World War II, that started us down the road to health care ruin in the first place. When you subsidize something the demand for it goes up. It's like having a clearance sale! The very same politicians who believe so strongly in incentives when they are handing out $7,500 of your tax dollars so their fellow eco-warriors can drive green in a $40,000 electric vehicle are just undone by the fact that subsidizing health care has lead to an increased demand for it.

The solution to rising health care costs is LESS GOVERNMENT, NOT MORE!

The government needs to let insurance companies get back to selling insurance, which is a protection against a loss that is not economically recoverable from. Insurance is not a payment system designed to take the brain power out of the decision to go see a doctor simply because the cost of that visit is near zero.

The government needs to stop subsidizing health care via the tax code. When consumers of health care start to pay the real costs of the health care they purchase they will respond, like they do when the price of any other commodity they purchase increases. They will reduce their demand for it.

The government mandating what procedures need to be included in an individual's policy needs to end. Only the consumer can know what is of real value to them, and what they are willing to freely exchange their hard earned dollars for. When they are able to shop and compare costs and benefits, they will.

We need to let doctors be doctors and practice medicine again, instead of having to practice the bizarre form of health care CYA that an out-of-control trial lawyer lobby has forced upon them through outrageous malpractice awards.

Until we get the Government out health care, no real reform will be possible, and Government will continue to play their game, which is to shift costs onto what ever group happens to occupy their demon of the day spotlight.

Below is a link with the fax number of every senator who is voting on the bill today. Send your senator a note and let him know how you feel.

http://www.grassfire.org/1122/targets.htm

Dave Cribbin is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1669

Gangster Government

Have you read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" yet..

If not.. its worth the $99 speed reading course.