Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe
I believe lower taxes, smaller government, and greater personal responsibility will lead to greater prosperity for all.
We just need to stay away from borrowing vast sums to finance tax cuts, and we need to retain some regulation so runaway greed does not sink the markets, and at some point the prosperity needs to become evident.
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I could not agree more with your first line Joe...I would argue that each time that taxes have been cut in any serious way they were followed by huge economic growth in this country and the Treasury enjoyes a windfall each time...problem is that as soon a "Washington" sees in increase in money coming in their direction they begin "creating" new and bigger ways to use it, never seems to find it's way to the "lock box".....what I believe is needed is term limits for every last one of our legislators, there should be no way that these guys spend their lives in Washington(or locally) building huge war chest and playing monopoly with the peolple money....even the good ones get entrenched and fall in love with the atmosphere down there and decide they'll do anything to stay....the runaway greed and power is in Washington as well...
BTW...keep an eye on the Congressional hearings going on now regarding 401k's and other private retirement savings.... the new congress is looking for money to finance their agenda, a huge pool of money that they will try to tap is private retirement accounts by offering to roll them into Soc Sec. guaranteeing their value at a time prior to the slide in the market...the "Great Society" was finance by emptying Social Security if it funds...now we pay current recipients with our current contributions...this will be the Great Society Part II ..."Universal Guaranteed Retirements Accounts" are what they're being titled...the government will manage your "private" retirement savings for you...yikes!!!
Carolina Journal Exclusives
Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts
Democratic leaders in the U.S. House discuss confiscating 401(k)s, IRAs
By Karen McMahan
November 04, 2008
RALEIGH — Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.
Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly.
The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.
(THIS IS FROM A LEFT LEANING THINK TANK "SHARED PROSPERITY")
Guaranteed retirement accounts
Toward retirement income security
by Teresa Ghilarducci
For most of the last century, American retirement income policy supported a combination of programs—Social Security and federal tax subsidies for traditional defined-benefit pensions and for voluntary personal retirement accounts—that enabled many people to stop working and to maintain their living standards in retirement, while reducing old-age poverty rates.
But the American retirement income security system is breaking down. If current trends continue, poverty rates among the elderly will increase and middle-class retirees will find that their retirement income will not pay for the lifestyle they achieved while working. This will be the first time since World War II that the standard of living of elderly Americans declines while that of prime- age workers increases.
This reversal is due to tax and regulatory policies that fail to promote retirement savings and penalize defined-benefit plans. Regulations favor, and tax subsidies increasingly go to, the wrong kinds of retirement programs. As a result, 401(k) plans and other defined-contribution plans1 that were designed to supplement, not replace, traditional pensions are growing at the expense of defined-benefit plans that provide secure supplemental income to Social Security.
Congressman JIM MORAN(D-VA): Now, in the last 7 years, we have had the highest corporate profit ever in American history, hightest corporate profit. We've had the highest productivity. The American worker has produced more per person then at any time. But it hasn't been shared. And that's the problem, because we have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it, and they have an antipathy towards means of redistributing wealth. And they may be able to sustain that for a while, but it doesn't work in the long run.
KISS YOUR WEALTH GOODBYE!!!!