How to solve the Economic Crisis

[Keith_Hixson]

http://www.workforce.com/section/00/...e/25/83/58.php


New proposal going on in congress.

Keith

[darrels joy]

House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks
Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.

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October 16, 2008
House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks
Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-California, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.

A plan by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, contains elements that are being considered. She testified last week before Miller’s Education and Labor Committee on her proposal.

At that hearing, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Peter Orszag, testified that some $2 trillion in retirement savings has been lost over the past 15 months.

Under Ghilarducci’s plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5 percent of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation.

The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated.

“I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s,” Ghilarducci said in an interview. “401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won’t have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break.”

Under the current 401(k) system, investors are charged relatively high retail fees, Ghilarducci said.

“I want to spend our nation’s dollar for retirement security better. Everybody would now be covered” if the plan were adopted, Ghilarducci said.

She has been in contact with Miller and McDermott about her plan, and they are interested in pursuing it, she said.

“This [plan] certainly is intriguing,” said Mike DeCesare, press secretary for McDermott.

“That is part of the discussion,” he said.

While Miller stopped short of calling for Ghilarducci’s plan at the hearing last week, he was clearly against continuing tax breaks as they currently exist.

Savings rate
“The savings rate isn’t going up for the investment of $80 billion,” he said. “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.”

“From where I sit that’s just crazy,” said John Belluardo, president of Stewardship Financial Services Inc. in Tarrytown, New York. “A lot of people contribute to their 401(k)s because of the match of the employer,” he said. Belluardo’s firm does not manage assets directly.

Higher-income employers provide matching funds to employee plans so that they can qualify for tax benefits for their own defined-contribution plans, he said.

“If the tax deferral goes away, the employers have no reason to do the matches, which primarily help people in the lower income brackets,” Belluardo said.

“This is a battle between liberalism and conservatism,” said Christopher Van Slyke, a partner in the La Jolla, California, advisory firm Trovena, which manages $400 million. “People are afraid because their accounts are seeing some volatility, so Democrats will seize on the opportunity to attack a program where investors control their own destiny,” he said.

The Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America in Chicago, which represents employers that sponsor defined-contribution plans, is “staunchly committed to keeping the employee benefit system in America voluntary,” said Ed Ferrigno, vice president in the Washington office.

“Some of the tenor [of the hearing last week] that the entire system should be based on the activities of the markets in the last 90 days is not the way to judge the system,” he said.

No legislative proposals have been introduced and Congress is out of session until next year.

However, most political observers believe that Democrats are poised to gain seats in both the House and the Senate, so comments made by the mostly Democratic members who attended the hearing could be a harbinger of things to come.

Advice at issue
In addition to tax breaks for 401(k)s, the issue of allowing investment advisors to provide advice for 401(k) plans was also addressed at the hearing. Rep. Robert Andrews, D-New Jersey, was critical of Department of Labor proposals made in August that would allow advisors to give individual advice if the advice was generated using a computer model.

Andrews characterized the proposals as “loopholes” and said that investment advice should not be given by advisors who have a direct interest in the sale of financial products.

The Pension Protection Act of 2006 contains provisions making it easier for investment advisors to give individualized counseling to 401(k) holders.

“In retrospect that doesn’t seem like such a good idea to me,” Andrews said. “This is an issue I think we have to revisit. I frankly think that the compromise we struck in 2006 is not terribly workable or wise,” he said.

On Thursday, October 9, the Department of Labor hastily scheduled a public hearing on the issue in Washington for Tuesday, October 21.

The agency does not frequently hold public hearings on its proposals. Filed by Sara Hansard of Investment News, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.
http://www.workforce.com/section/00/...e/25/83/58.php

[darrels joy]

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (H.R.1424)
http://www.house.gov/Welcome.shtml

H.R.1424
Title: A bill to provide authority for the Federal Government to purchase and insure certain types of troubled assets for the purposes of providing stability to and preventing disruption in the economy and financial system and protecting taxpayers, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide incentives for energy production and conservation, to extend certain expiring provisions, to provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Kennedy, Patrick J. [RI-1] (introduced 3/9/2007) Cosponsors (274)

Related Bills: H.RES.1014, H.RES.1525, H.R.493, H.R.1367, H.R.6983, H.R.7202, H.R.7207, S.358, S.558
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 110-343 [GPO: Text, PDF]
House Reports: 110-374 Part 1, 110-374 Part 2, 110-374 Part 3
Note: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. H.R.1424 is the vehicle for the economic rescue legislation. Division A is the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008; Division B is the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008; and Division C is the Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008.
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RELATED BILL DETAILS: (additional related bills may be identified in Status)
H.RES.1014
Title: Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1424) to amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, and section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HE01014:
H.RES.1525
Title: Providing for consideration of the Senate amendments to the bill (H.R. 1424) to amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment, and for other purposes.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HE01525:
H.R.493
Title: To prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00493:
H.R.1367
Title: To amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, and section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR01367:
H.R.6983
Title: To amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, and section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans, and for other purposes.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR06983:
H.R.7202
Title: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend certain expiring provisions, to provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR07202:

H.R.7207
Title: To amend the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Organization Act to improve the process of reallocation of spectrum from Federal government uses to commercial uses.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR07207:
S.358
Title: A bill to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN00358:
S.558
Title: A bill to provide parity between health insurance coverage of mental health benefits and benefits for medical and surgical services.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN00558:


Financial Services Committee
http://financialservices.house.gov/

[darrels joy]

Obama Bombshell Redistribution of Wealth Audio Uncovered

Obama Bombshell Audio Uncovered. He wants to Radically Reinterpret the Constitution to Redistribute Wealth!!

In a 2001 Chicago Public Radio Interview

Obama is discussing the best way to bring about a Redistribution of Wealth!!!

This Video Exposes the radical underneath the rhetoric!!!

YouTube - Obama Bombshell Redistribution of...

[darrels joy]

Barack Obama, in 2001:

You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil-rights movement was because the civil-rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.

A caller then helpfully asks: “The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is (with economic changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?”

Obama replies:

You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.

So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”