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It Takes A Pillage
Argentina nationalized private pension funds in 2008 under the guise of shielding them from the economic meltdown. But the funds have been used by lawmakers. That couldn't happen here, could it?

Socialist President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said the state was protecting private retirement from "policies of plunder." By moving tens of billions from the private sector and placing it in the public fisc, she claimed to be providing "an example" for others to follow as the global financial crisis heated up.

The Argentine Congress, making a promise it didn't intend to keep, said it would make sure the money would be used for pensions. Instead, it was used for government spending. Nearly $30 billion was stolen from the citizens of Argentina by the government that was supposed to protect them from thieves.

Democrats have been casting a similar greedy eye on Americans' pensions since at least the 1990s, though they typically kept their ambitions quiet. But in January, the lid on envy began to boil over.
  • Bloomberg reported that the Treasury and Labor departments were inviting public comment on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) and individual retirement accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams.

  • A month later, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and policy analyst Peter Ferrara, reacting to the appeal for public comment, warned in our On The Right column that "Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings."

  • Then in May, based on what she had read in the Annual Report of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, Connie Hair wrote in Human Events that "the radical solution most favored by Big Labor is the seizure of private 401(k) plans for government disbursement."

The selling point for these plans would be much like the fiction that was peddled in Argentina: The funds would go into a pot that the government would protect from economic decline before they are distributed to retirees.

That sounds a lot like the mythical Social Security lockbox, in which Washington seizes a portion of Americans' private income, then uses what it doesn't pay out in Social Security benefits to finance the general budget.

So it not only can happen here, it does happen here. It just hasn't yet spread to the private retirement accounts that Americans put their money in after Washington has taken a significant chunk of their paychecks to fund the crashing Social Security program. But it will, if we keep electing the same class of candidates that have created the problems plaguing us today.
Posted by: Fred 2010-07-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=300142