I Really Hope They're Not Seriously Considering This

[rowyn]

The House Committee on Education and Labor hears testimony on nationalizing* pensions and 401(k) accounts.

Dear Congress:

I do not want a bailout. I do not want to be punished for having chosen to save for my retirement by having my savings taken away from me. I do not want my retirement savings to go bankrupt by the time I'm 65 the way the existing Social Security Administration is going to. In short:

DO NOT WANT.

Please keep your grubby hands off of my investments. K thx.

Love and kisses,
Rowyn

* Edit: shaterri looked at the actual testimony (which I can't do at the moment, so see his comment below), and apparently the article linked above is at the least inflammatory if not outright fabrication: the testifying speaker doesn't advocate "confiscating" existing 401(k)s or pensions. I feel better. Thanks, Shaterri! And I'm sure Congress wouldn't take her seriously even if she had. Really. 99.9% sure, anyway.

Comments

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

Having read the actual testimony: since the proposal includes, as a later stage, completely wiping the law authorizing 401(k)s from the map, it is a confiscation (at that time) for everyone who cannot afford to pay the tax penalties from cashing out.

There is no point pretending otherwise. And while this floats like a lead balloon now, it is not so clear that when 401(k)s are empirically bad for everyone that U.S. Congress will refuse to do what West Virginia's Congress did for its teachers' unions: confiscate all of the 401(k)s because the claims made about them as retirement savings were false, and replace with a politically correct pension. [In West Virginia's case, the affected teachers had their retirement payouts immediately double.]