{"id":102663,"date":"2024-06-25T15:27:39","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T20:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=102663"},"modified":"2024-06-25T15:27:39","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T20:27:39","slug":"102663","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=102663","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The Message Is Plain<\/a><\/p>\n

There are no property rights in the United States\u2026at least, none that the State deigns to honor.<\/p>\n

Do you remember\u00a0Teresa Ghilarducci?<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0I do. Any American who has a 401(k), an IRA, or some equivalent should know about her and\u00a0her chief ambition:<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers\u2019 personal retirement accounts \u2014 including 401(k)s and IRAs \u2014 and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly.<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers\u2019 retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration\u2026.<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The current retirement system, Ghilarducci said, \u201cexacerbates income and wealth inequalities\u201d because tax breaks for voluntary retirement accounts are \u201cskewed to the wealthy because it is easier for them to save, and because they receive bigger tax breaks when they do.\u201d\u2026<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All workers would have 5 percent of their annual pay deducted from their paychecks and deposited to the GRA. They would still be paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, as would the employers. The GRA contribution would be shared equally by the worker and the employee. Employers no longer would be able to write off their contributions. Any capital gains would be taxable year-on-year.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Socialists are forever talking about \u201cinequality\u201d (or in their more recent argot, \u201cinequity\u201d) because it affords them a pretext for seizing our money and property in pursuit of their agenda. It\u2019s well established historically that \u201cinequality\u201d\u00a0increases<\/i><\/b>\u00a0under socialism, but they\u2019d rather we didn\u2019t notice that. At any rate, they constantly seek rationales under which to \u201credistribute\u201d what we\u2019ve earned and saved. We must all be equally poor \u2013 except for our loving rulers, of course. Anything else would be \u201cunfair!\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Democrats are socialists by another name. Their aim is the destruction of what remaining rights we have, that we might come fully under the control of the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent State \u2013 which, of course, will be captained by them. Their principal measure by which to achieve this end state is taxation. Just now, enraged over the horrendous deficits their insatiable spending has created, they\u2019re threatening us with\u00a0\u201ctax Armageddon:\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe main goal here is this can\u2019t just be a debate about the 2017 tax cuts,\u201d Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said. \u201cThis is going to be Tax Armageddon. It\u2019s time to suit up.\u201d<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Senate Democrats have taken a different tack than their GOP tax-writing counterparts in prepping for 2025. While Republicans on the tax committees have set up working groups focused on specific issues, Finance Committee Democrats have not set up similar groups.<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he planned to hold both group and one-on-one meetings with his Finance panel colleagues to devise top priorities.<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going to continue to work with my colleagues to build a revenue menu to get good ideas, my colleagues had a number of them,\u201d he told reporters, adding that this approach will allow priorities like low-income housing tax credits to not get lost in the debate.<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wyden said he was struck by members\u2019 commitment to raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and companies.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Translation: \u201cIs inflation near to killing you, Citizen? Never fear;\u00a0we\u2019ll<\/i>\u00a0finish the job.\u201d Quoth\u00a0Stephen Green:<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The tax man never merely cometh for \u201cthe rich.\u201d<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [\u2026]<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The second issue is the Democrats\u2019 longstanding desire to impose an unconstitutional wealth tax.<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Wa.) chairs the Finance Committee and last Thursday \u201crevived his pitch to tax the appreciation of assets for those with at least $100 million in income,\u201d the Wall Street Journal reported. \u201cWyden plans to run through the door on wealth taxes that the Supreme Court left open Thursday in its lamentable decision in Moore v. U.S.\u201d<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [Massachusetts Democrat Senator Elizabeth] Warren is already on board the wealth tax train, with threats of a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households with more than $50 million. But like the income tax \u2014 which was originally sold as only falling on \u201cthe rich\u201d \u2014 the real target of a wealth tax is the retirement accounts (and appreciation in home values) of regular Americans because as bank robber Willie Sutton is supposed to have said, \u201cThat\u2019s where the money is.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The aggregate of savings in Americans\u2019 private retirement accounts exceeds\u00a0$20 Trillion.<\/i><\/b>\u00a0Nearly all of it consists of holdings in stocks, mutual funds, and bonds: the definition of \u201cunrealized gains.\u201d Add to that the inflation-fueled increase in the dollar-denominated values of privately owned homes: some trillions of dollars more. All of that is currently protected against taxation\u2026and the Democrats want it.<\/p>\n

Watch out, Middle America. If you\u2019ve managed to save a bit, or if you own your own home, you\u2019re under the Democrats\u2019 crosshairs. Moreover, merely electing Republicans won\u2019t protect you. Quite a lot of them, anxious to reduce the annual deficit without engaging in the painful and politically hazardous labor of reducing federal spending, are on board with the Democrats\u2019 taxing desires.<\/p>\n

As the man said in the song, \u201cAin\u2019t but one way out\u201d \u2013 and\u00a0I\u2019ve already told you what it is.<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0Don\u2019t expect to stumble over a gentler solution that\u2019s just been lying on the sidewalk, waiting to be noticed. You won\u2019t find any diamonds that way, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Message Is Plain There are no property rights in the United States\u2026at least, none that the State deigns to honor. Do you remember\u00a0Teresa Ghilarducci?\u00a0I do. Any American who has a 401(k), an IRA, or some equivalent should know about her and\u00a0her chief ambition: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,10,20,9,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucraps","category-corruption","category-economy","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-goobermint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102664,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102663\/revisions\/102664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}