Congress mulls major 401(k) changes

Humphrey Bear

DIS Veteran
Joined
Dec 3, 2001
Messages
1,088
The government may force you to invest all your retirement in government bonds.

Also being discussed is letting us trade in our 401Ks for guaranteed retirement accounts.

Also - they consider it "spending" 80 billion because they don't get to tax us ahead of time on our 401K money as it goes in. They forget they get taxes when the withdrawals are made.

Oh and guess what.. if you invest in a 401K or IRA you are part of THE RICH.
:sad2:



A wide range of sweeping changes to the 401(k) system were proposed Tuesday at a hearing on how the market crisis has devastated retirement savings plans.
Chief among them was eliminating $80 billion in tax savings for higher-income people enrolled in 401(k) retirement savings plans.

This was suggested by the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

“With respect to the 401(k), it appears to be a plan that is not really well-devised for the changes in the market,” Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said.

“We’ve invested $80 billion into subsidizing this activity,” he said, referring to tax breaks allowed for 401(k) contributions and savings.

With savings rates going down, “what do we have to start to think about in Congress of whether or not we want to continue and invest that $80 billion for a policy that is not generating what we … say it should?” Mr. Miller said.

Congress should let workers trade their 401(k) assets for guaranteed retirement accounts made up of government bonds, suggested Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at The New School for Social Research in New York.

When workers collected Social Security, the guaranteed retirement account would pay an inflation-adjusted annuity under her plan.

“The way the government now encourages 401(k) plans is to spend $80 billion in tax breaks,” which goes to the highest-income earners, Ms. Ghilarducci said.

That simply results in transferring money from taxed savings accounts to untaxed accounts, she said.

“If we implement automatic [individual retirement accounts] or if we expand the 401(k) system, all we’re doing is adding to this inefficiency,” Ms. Ghilarducci said.

Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., raised the issue of which investment advisers are allowed to offer workers investment advice.

The Department of Labor is considering “loopholes” that would allow advisers to offer “conflicted investment advice if the advisers work for subsidiaries of financial services companies that sell the investments,” he said.

With American workers facing $2 trillion in losses from retirement plans over the past year and Democrats expected to gain seats in the House and the Senate, actions being contemplated by the committee are an important harbinger of what could come out of Congress next year.


http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008810079894
 

[
A wide range of sweeping changes to the 401(k) system were proposed Tuesday at a hearing on how the market crisis has devastated retirement savings plans.
Chief among them was eliminating $80 billion in tax savings for higher-income people enrolled in 401(k) retirement savings plans.

The stock market has dropped precipitously due to bad coporate investments and imprudently bad credit policies (giving mortgages to people with bad/no credit and/or no ability to repay the mortgage, for instance). And there are politicians who believe that the solution to that drop in the market is to encourage average Americans to get out of the market (by eliminating the 401k and/or reducing the tax benefits)? Boy, that is Politician Logic if I ever heard of it!!!

Who do these politicians think is keeping the stock market from going lower at this point??? Corporate investors are fleeing stocks in droves. And most wealthy investors are probably trying to keep their money liquid as well, right now. 401k investors, who are less likely to buy and sell on a daily basis and who are more likely to see a dip in the market as a "sale" are one of the last set of investors to divest themselves of stock in a market downturn.

And I guarantee you that if we don't have 401ks (or some other similar "forced" retirement account), that we'll be having yet another economic crisis down the road as we try to support all of those folks who spent every dime they made instead of investing for the future.... that's if we don't encounter that crisis anyway in the next 20 years or so... :rolleyes:

The gov't needs to be encouraging more thriftiness and accountability, both on the part of government (local, state, and federal), corporations, and individuals. Our politicians need to stop asking what they can do for themselves and start asking what they can do for Americans.
 
I think that congress is pissed that they did not tax our 401Ks and now they may not get the chance to tax it due to the losses incurred.
 
I just love the arrogance.

Not!

The government doesn't spend money to give people tax breaks.

How stupid.
 
I just love the arrogance.

Not!

The government doesn't spend money to give people tax breaks.

How stupid.

When it comes to the government, this reflects their attitude;
"What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too!"
 
The government has been giving DH the money that he & I have invested in our IRAs and 401K all these years? I always thought it was his employer. Who knew? :confused3

So, our income has already phased out every deduction (because we no longer have a mortgage) except charity, and the only "break" we got was a delay in paying taxes on money put away for our retirement, but the Democrats wants to eliminate even that now. I'm sure charity will be next, because after all, why should anyone have to accept charity (and feel grateful) when the government can make them feel that they are entitled to that money.

BTW, I give 10% of my net income to various charities, but obviously, the less net I have, the less I will be able to give.
 
We can not even dream of what "plans" the Dems and Obama have for the "rich". Hold onto your wallet.

My only hope is after two years of Obama with a Dem congress the American Public will wake up and return control of congress to the Reps.
 


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