November 06, 2008

Would Obama, Dems Kill 401(k) Plans?

By offering you 3% interest and doing away with your tax deduction. Hey, they need to fix social security, right?
USNews

I hate to use the "S" word, but the American government would never do something as, well, socialist as seize private pension funds, right? This is exactly what cash-strapped Argentina just did in the name of protecting workers' retirement accounts (Efharisto, Fausta's Blog).

Now, even Uncle Sam isn't that stupid, but some Democrats might try something almost as loopy: kill 401(k) plans.

House Democrats recently invited Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School of Social Research, to testify before a subcommittee on her idea to eliminate the preferential tax treatment of the popular retirement plans. In place of 401(k) plans, she would have workers transfer their dough into government-created "guaranteed retirement accounts" for every worker.

The government would deposit $600 (inflation indexed) every year into the GRAs. Each worker would also have to save 5 percent of pay into the accounts, to which the government would pay a measly 3 percent return.

Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, said that since "the savings rate isn't going up for the investment of $80 billion [in 401(k) tax breaks], we have to start to think about whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that's not generating what we now say it should."

Hopey, changey always speaks of "economic and social" justice. Is President-elect Obama friends with professor Teresa Ghilarducci?

Audio of Professor Ghilarducci here

Professor "Social Justice" NYSlimes Op-Ed here

Update: Checked out wiki, redirects to "New School":

:

Philosophical tradition

The New School for Social Research continues the Graduate Faculty's tradition of synthesizing progressive American intellectual thought and critical European philosophy.

True to its origin and its firm roots within the University in Exile, The New School for Social Research, particularly its Department of Philosophy, is one of very few in the United States to offer students thorough training in the modern continental European philosophical tradition known as "Continental philosophy."

Thus, it stresses the teachings of Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Freud, Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, et al. [3]

The thought of the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School: Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, et al. holds an especially strong influence on all divisions of the school.

Lordy, lordy.