Now Obama wants your 401(k)

The Rumor Mill News Reading Room 

Now Obama wants your 401(k)

Posted By: RumorMail [Send E-Mail]
Date: Monday, 4-Feb-2013 19:03:57

The Obama administration is proceeding with a novel way to finance trillion-dollar budget deficits by forcing IRA and 401(k) holders to buy Treasury bonds by mandating the placement of government-structured annuities in their retirement accounts. Remarkably, those financial professionals specializing in private retirement savings and the U.S. citizens investing in private retirement plans now face the possibility the Obama administration and its allies on the political left will impose rules and regulations that effectively abolish the private retirement savings and investment markets. Recent evidence suggests government officials continue to eye the multi-trillion dollar private retirement savings market, including IRAs and 401(k) plans, eyeing the opportunity to redistribute private retirement savings to less affluent Americans and to force the retirement savings out of the private market and into government-controlled programs investing in government-issued debt. Government takeover? An Investment Company Institute study published this month found that U.S. retirement assets totaled $18.5 trillion at the end of the second quarter 2012, of which 3.5 trillion was in IRAs and $5.1 trillion was in 401(k) plans. Since 2010, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Department of Labor have been holding combined hearings on various plans designed to introduce government-mandated retirement plans and investment options, including government annuities invested primarily in U.S. Treasury debt, into the private retirement savings market. “This hearing was set up to explore why Americans are not saving as much for their retirement as they could,” explained National Seniors Council National Director Robert Crone, describing a recent Treasury-Labor hearing held in the Labor Department’s main auditorium. “However it is clear that his is just the first step toward a government takeover. It feels like the beginning of the debate over health care and we all know how that ended up.” ‘Automatic IRA’ With the issuance of the White House 256-page Budget Proposal for Fiscal Year 2013, the Obama administration endorsed “Automatic IRAs,” a plan introduced into Congress in 2010 by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass, and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., in which private companies would be automatically enrolled into government-mandated IRAs, forcing those businesses to contribute on behalf of their employees a “default amount” equal to 3 percent of an employees pay, unless an employee specifically opts out of the plan. The FY 2013 Budget proposal notes that currently 78 million working Americans, roughly half of the work force, lack employer-based retirement plans. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/now-obama-wants-your-401k/#ud3YV4cQQtGRsjWE.99