Bob Adelmann
New America
September 2, 2010
The Obama administration is “taking the first steps to confiscate retirement dollars,” according to Dr. Jerome Corsi who predicts that the end result will be retirees with 401(k) plans holding near-worthless government debt “that will be paid off in a devalued currency worth … pennies on the dollar.”
The move to confiscate those retirement dollars for government purposes was best illustrated by Christina Kirchner, President of Argentina, in 2008 when she announced plans to seize her citizens’ private pension funds. Writers at the Heritage Foundation said that while Kirchner claimed such seizure was necessary to protect her citizens’ investment accounts from the global meltdown, “most observers believe[d] her real motive [was] to use the $30 billion in seized assets to ease the massive debt obligations her leftist spendthrift government [had] run up.” The Wall Street Journal agreed, saying that “taking over the … pension fund assets [would] ease the cash crunch faced by [her] government.”
Corsi said he has a letter from the Treasury Department, Bureau of Public Debt, informing U.S. citizens that the federal government is rolling out a new program called “Treasury Direct” that will allow citizens “to purchase, manage, and redeem…savings bonds” electronically, as well as offering an option to purchase such bonds automatically through payroll savings or a personal checking account. This happened to coincide nicely, according to Corsi, with a bill offered by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) to create “Automatic IRAs” that would require all employers and employees to invest in IRAs using that automatic deduction option, “whether they want to do so or not.”
And this happened to coincide also with a program being pushed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) called “Retirement USA” which would create a government-forced retirement program with assets being directed into special Treasury Retirement Bonds, or R-Bonds. “Retirement USA” is promoting the idea that all workers have a “right” to a government retirement account, in addition to Social Security and any private pension plans those workers already have in place. Others behind “Retirement USA” also support more government dependency for workers, including the AFL-CIO, the Economic Policy Institute, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare and the Pension Rights Center.
All of this is being promoted by the idea that individual citizens aren’t saving enough for their retirement, and that consequently government has to “do something.” Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash., above photo), Chairman of the House Ways and Mean’s Committee’ Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, is confused about whose money is in those 401(k) plans: the individual contributor, or the government. He said that “since the savings rate isn’t going up for the investment [Congress is making] of $80 billion [in 401(k) tax savings], 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.”
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