Were you reading Legal Insurrection on the 3rd day of its existence?

If so, you would have known that Democrats were targeting your 401(k) and other retirement accounts, Will 401(k)’s Disappear in the Interest of “Fairness”?:

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-Calif., and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., 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.

So is it any surprise that a first step towards eliminating private retirement accounts will be part of Obama’s proposed budget? Via Breitbart (h/t reader):

The budget President Barack Obama will submit on April 10 will contain a proposal that would prohibit individuals from accumulating more than $3 million in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and tax-preferred retirement accounts. According to a White House statement, the Obama administration believes the current rules allow some wealthy individuals “to accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.” “The budget would limit an individual’s total balance across tax-preferred accounts to an amount sufficient to finance an annuity of not more than $205,000 per year in retirement, or about $3 million in 2013,” the statement said. “This proposal would raise $9 billion over 10 years.”

Targeting retirement accounts was a long time in coming, but it always was in the administration’s back pocket in case needed.

Alternative title: All I really need to know about the Obama presidency I learned at Legal Insurrection in October 2008.



