[StBernard] Democrats want to abolish Retirement Account tax breaks

[Westley Annis]

>When Congress decides to merge THEIR retirement system into the Social

>Security plan, then maybe I will consider a government run retirement

>system. Until then, I will manage my own retirement plan, thank you very

>much.


I have written about this **several** times but apparently it's not getting
through.

Congressfolks, as well as ALL Federal employees, pay into Social Security.
The old retirement system, Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) was done
away with under Reagan.  The only people who are active in that system would
be those still working who were under the old system at that time.  Probably
the only congressional person still under CSRS would be Byrd from WVA.  All
new hires since 1986 (including congressional folks) are under FERS, Federal
Employees Retirement System.  http://opm.gov/retire/pre/fers/index.asp

Federal folks pay into social security and a 401k type plan, the Thrift
Savings Plan.  http://tsp.gov/            Employees can put their TSP
contributions into govt bonds or into one of several accounts that follow
the market.  About the only thing that's different is that since they don't
have a company stock plan they don't have to put a certain amt. into company
stock as many private 401k plans do.  Now, some of the groups that **don't**
pay into social security are these:  state, local govt. employees,
firefighters and police, and teachers.  I have a friend who just retired
from teaching in Ohio and she's got a damned good retirement plan, plus she
has her own private account, like a 401k with TIAA Cref.

So, now that we understand that congressional folks and federal employees
**do** pay into S.S. I now return you to your regular programming.

JY



-

	
	-----------------------------------------------------
	Bob,
	
	I had discussion about this with someone else. Here's the questions
I
	posed:
	
	1) Is this $2 trillion original money or paper gains? If it is paper
gains,
	is it ALL of the paper gains? If you put $2000 into your retirement
account
	and it is still worth $2000, have you LOST anything? If you had
stuffed it
	under the mattress, what's the difference?
	
	2) Is this $2 trillion "loss" only for people who are aiming to
	retire in
	the next five years? If you are within five years of retirement,
even ten
	years of retirement, you need to start moving your retirement funds
out of
	stocks and into bonds. I don't know a single investment advisor
worth his
	salt that hasn't stressed this.
	
	Some liberal
	 Democrat in Congress wants to dictate even more of my money
	into a government run retirement system. I'm sorry, but to me that
says he
	is admitting that Social Security is a failure. I'm already trying
to keep
	as much of my money out of Social Security as I can, I sure don't
want the
	government to take what little bit I have left to save for
retirement and
	force it into a government run plan.
	
	When Congress decides to merge THEIR retirement system into the
Social
	Security plan, then maybe I will consider a government run
retirement
	system. Until then, I will manage my own retirement plan, thank you
very
	much.
	
	This plan, being touted by Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School for
Social
	Research, wants the government to guarantee a 3% return, after
inflation.
	Look at the Treasury Department's web site, 20 year Treasury bonds
	haven't
	been hitting 3% lately, which means it will cost even MORE money
	 to
	guarantee 3%.
	
	And, I also have to question the math. The top of the article says
we have a
	$3 trillion 401(k) system, but Peter Orszag, from the Congressional
Budget
	Office, says we lost $2 trillion in retirement savings. Has the
stock market
	really lost 2/3's of its value?
	
	This is the real FEAR MONGERING at its best.
	
	Westley
	
	PS Vote NOBAMA!