"Critics charge that President Obama’s budget and tax policies target wealth redistribution – social engineering – rather than boosting the economy. His proposal to limit contributions to tax-deferred savings accounts strengthens their case.It is sometimes claimed that it was the young people who put Obama in office (when it's not claimed that it was the blacks, or the guilt-ridden whites trying to make up for racism). The young will suffer disproportionately from Obama's economic attack on the USA. They will rue the day they made that vote, even more than I rue the day they made that vote.
In his budget released earlier this month, Obama proposed capping lifetime contributions to 401(k)s or Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) at “about $3 million for someone retiring in 2013,” in order to prevent “wealthy individuals” from accumulating “substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement savings.”
This is the same president who said last year, “If you work hard your whole life, you ought to have every opportunity to retire with dignity and financial security….” Obama would like to decide what constitutes dignity and financial security for you.
This particular effort to “level the playing field,” as Obama is so fond of saying, will hit those who work hard, reap the rewards, and save aggressively. It especially sends the wrong message to young people. An analysis by the Employee Benefit Research Analysis suggests that anywhere from 1 percent to 6 percent of workers age 26 to 35 might ultimately hit the cap, depending on investment returns, asset allocation decisions and other variables.
What is the point? The proposal is expected to save the government only $9 billion over the next 10 years – a drop in the budget bucket. This suggestion is not aimed at balancing our books, but at preventing the industrious from getting ahead. This, at a moment when it is clear that the nation should be promoting, and not discouraging savings, when Social Security looks likely to become another welfare program rather than a broad-based retirement account, and when the government boasts about reducing – not adding -- red tape. And when, by the way, young people have been scorched by the financial crisis and are skittish about investing. Young people who live in a time that celebrates conspicuous consumption and not thrift."
Thursday, January 16, 2014
The Drive to Redistribute
The Financial Times hits Obama's war on the productive class:
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5 comments:
Socialism doesn't create wealth; it merely (re)distributes it.
The wealth gap between the top few percent and the rest is widening. Much of this is due to most of our production jobs being outsourced overseas, Wall Street deregulation, etc. If Obama were really interested in helping the poor and working class, he'd do something to prevent companies from outsourcing, close loopholes, prevent big businesses from forging treaties which benefit themselves at our expense (ACTA, SOPA, TPP) and criminally punish banks which engage in fraud. That would be a good first step in the right direction.
Follow the money. The crony capitalists in charge of banks and big businesses (inc. Hollywood studios and the like) finance both parties' political campaigns. Politicians aren't willing to compromise such generosity in order to stand on principle and serve the public good. They're sell-outs.
An interesting aside vis-a-vis the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), otherwise known as "ObamaCare."
My company (an employer of more than 50 people) dropped the health care plan that covered my wife and me in NOV 2013. Justification: the company had "run the numbers" and figured out it would go broke if it complied. We were "strongly encouraged" to seek health insurance on the ObamaCare exchange. The company announced "plans" to (eventually) provide some sort of health insurance coverage which would meet PPACA requirements. I checked into ObamaCare and found that I was totally ineligible for ANYTHING under it because I am 65 years old. I MUST get Medicare with a supplemental plan instead. BUT, I cannot insure my wife under THAT, because she is only 59 years old. The cheapest plan that I could find for her costs $500 per month, with a $5,000 deductible, and a health plan which pays NOTHING until the entire deductible is met, and then it only reimburses 65% of the expenses for the minimum required Employee Health Benefits. Medicare plus supplemental plus my wife's insurance plus the $5,000 means that we will have to spend over $12,000 per year to get reasonable benefits for me and NOTHING for her. Previously we were paying approximately $4,300 per year for both of us. THIS IS "AFFORDABLE?!?"
Time passed...
On or about 11 JAN 2014, the company announced the new health insurance plan (which must be accepted by 24 JAN 2014). It offers specific LIMITED dollar benefits for each covered item or procedure. It does NOT cap the out-of-pocket expenses that might occur for major medical. It costs about $30 per month more than the previous plan, which covered essentially the same limited number of things, and also includes a new "wellness" plan (which seems to be the major "Employee Health Benefit" required by the law, of the 10 EHBs required).
My youngest brother is an expert Senior Services Adviser on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the PPACA requirements. When he began reviewing the offered plan, it did NOT cover all 10 REQUIRED EHBs. He was puzzled by the omission and the contradictory statement that the plan DID meet all PPACA requirements. So, he looked up the PPACA language online.
SURPRISE! If a company is deemed to be a "large company" under PPACA (with 50 or more employees), then it does NOT have to meet the 10 EHBs requirements. Only companies SMALLER THAN 50 employees (and individuals) must have all 10 EHBs in their health plan to be considered in compliance. In fact, there is not really much that a "large company" has to do in order to meet the requirements.
So, the "little people" and the "little companies" MUST comply with ALL provisions, and the "large companies," large unions and political associates and staff do NOT have to meet the mandatory requirements - because they are exempted.
As Michael so eloquently put it:
"Follow the money."
Jeez, that's simply incredible. This trainwreck of a program demonstrates what a massive failure socialism is, but alas, this is what the progressives want in order to control people's lives. Apparently when they claim they want to 'spread the wealth,' what they reall mean is they want to make everyone else just as miserable as themselves. Oh, and I'm sure you've realized all along how badly government wants to eliminate small business, because they don't want competition in the market and domestic job opportunities. The APA gives them a golden opportunity to play class warfare by discriminating against those who have less.
I'm sorry for your wife and I'm sorry for where this country is heading. Neither party gives a damn about this country anymore.
Michael:
"...they want to make everyone else just as miserable as themselves."
Not so: they are the ruling elite, and they have NO intention of living like the masses they strive to control. Like everything else they do, they rationalize their "perks" as just compensation for the "hard labor" they incur making sure the Herd follows their rules.
Look at the old Soviet Union as a prime example. There were the "regular" stores for the masses, with limited selections and even more limited quantities of every possible material good. Then there were the "special" stores for the true believer comrades, which had virtually anything desired AND at considerably less cost than in the "regular" stores.
I experienced a little of that same mentality while in and around the US military. The goods offered in the commissaries and the exchanges were oriented toward the officers, NOT the "little people" in the enlisted ranks. Why? Because if the purchasers did not seek out what was desired by the officers' wives, the Officers' Wives Club would exert pressure on the purchasers through their husbands to get what they wanted. The junior enlisted people could not afford to shop in those stores except for very basic necessities. Clothes and other similar goods were of high quality ad name brand goods, so were also too expensive. An ugly truth about the junior enlisted ranks for many years was that they were on food stamps in order to just feed their families and were forced to live in either low-cost housing either rented by the base or actually off-base.
Having been away from the military for 18 years, I can only hope that situation is no longer the case. The higher salaries of entry level enlisted personnel has grown considerably over the years of the all-volunteer services.
Timely quote:
"Liberals believe in giving too, except they “give” what are another’s material possessions to those the liberal believes more deserving. But this seems to bring liberals no happiness – they often seem so miserable – and under Hugh’s [Hugh Hewitt] construction it cannot. Redistribution not an act of sacrifice; it’s an exercise of power."
[emphasis added].
Because Atheism is self-focused, power and the will to power dominate their self-worth and worldview; thus their claim of empathy refers to their desire to assert power to give to their Victim Class that which they take from their Oppressor Class. This costs them nothing, and allows them to revel in their self-defined moral superiority.
Thus their morality is not applicable to themselves, it is purely designed for the Other; the Messiahs merely gain by having defined the classes, at no sacrifice to themselves, no overt effort, only forced redistribution on the rest of the world.
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