Tag: IRA

  I was scanning the news today when I came across an article that caused me to say, “Damn! I’m going to be right again.”

 WASHINGTON — Debt ceiling negotiators think they’ve hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public’s unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress…

  Legislation approved by the Super Congress — which some on Capitol Hill are calling the “super committee” — would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn’t be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who’d have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process.

 I will let others address the Constitutionality of this new legislative body, and instead focus on a target of the budget cutting – retirement savings.

“The 401(k) system has to be fixed, and I don’t know anybody who can fix it but the federal government.”

– John Bogle

 Late last week the federal government began floating proposals for reforming America’s broken retirement system. The proposed reform centers around the idea of getting people to invest more conservatively and withdraw the money more slowly so that they don’t outlive their savings.

 The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are leading the effort.

 Secretary Iwry developed this idea when he was working at the Brooking Institute in 2008 in conjunction with the Heritage Foundation. The concept involves rolling people’s 401(k) savings into directed distribution plans unless they specifically elect not to participate.

 This probably sounds like a reasonable idea until you dig beneath the surface.

As a result of a recent event involving an aircraft and underpants Representative Peter King (R-Not From Iowa), the senior Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, has again come forth to bring his expertise on questions of international terrorism to the national debate.

King, a Congressman who represents a district that straddles New York’s Long Island (NY-3), previously served as the Comptroller of Nassau County and a member of Hempstead, New York’s Town Council, which wouldn’t seem to be the kind of résumé that would give you much credibility in this arena-but Mr. King is a special case.

You see, Mr. King knows a great deal about terrorism…from the inside…because for many years the personal cause that drove his life was to be an active and public supporter of a terrorist group.

And that’s why, today, we’ll be connecting the dots between Congressman King and the Irish Republican Army.

The UK continues to pay for timorous Tony Blair’s white-livered decision to debase his nation as George II’s quivering lapdog.

One debt will be collected by Lofti Raissi, a British resident who last week won the right to seek monetary damages from the UK, as compensation for his groundless arrest and incarceration, on American orders, during the disgraceful Anglo-American overreaction to the attacks of September 11.

Three senior British judges held that the British government impermissibly used “unsubstantiated allegations” in a US extradition warrant “as a device to circumvent the rule of English law.”

Raissi, wholly innocent, was held in maximum-security confinement for six months, where he was twice stabbed by other inmates, while his name was foamingly bruited about in the shrieking British tabloids as a slavering 9/11 arch-fiend.

The court concluded that, to poodle up to the Americans, British police and prosecutors abused the legal process, filed false allegations, and concealed evidence, and thus Raissi may seek up to 2 million pounds in damages.

“I always say Britain is a civilised country with beautiful people,” Raissi said. “I really cherish the customs, the way of life here. But after 9/11, things changed.”

Raissi’s ordeal, below the divide.