Will the indignities of the government never cease. Take your IRA for example - your savings for that stormy day when your earnings equal your bar bill - not including chips. Here’s the government still extending its open palm. YOUR IRA, YOUR money. And yet the state, backed by the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines demands that at 70 and a half years of age you must take a mandated percentage of your savings. Not 68 years of age, not 69 and a half, not 71 and three fourths, but 70 and a half. Like there’s something mathematically magic about three score and ten and six months. Have office buildings full of government economists slaved over the impact of this number on the US economy and found that at 70 and a half, its salubrious effect peaks?
Why must we take it then - why is there no choice in this matter of our savings? When they designed and passed the IRA legislation can’t you see a covey of congressmen declaring that they must not give their tax-paying subjects, even this small break, without somehow constricting their choices. The usual attitude of the Giant Governmental Anaconda. Choice is bad, law is good, hisses the Giant Governmental Anaconda.
“Tell ya what”, says a wizened,old 8 term encumbent. “Let’s insert in the bill a forced withdrawal at 70.5 years of age.
“Why?”, ask the young uncorrupted first termers.
“Oh just for the hell of it - just to show ‘em it’s our call, not theirs. Wouldn’t be wise to give the people too much power over their own money. Next thing ya know they’d question Social Security - why those accounts grow as slow as fungus on a dry log. Besides, we don’t want to put off forever the taxation on that money. The sooner we get it, the better. We’ll tell ‘em that at 70.5 it optimably lubricates the economy, invigorates employment of their kids. Stuff like that. That “kid” argument always wets their eyes and unzips their wallets.
The lack of choice in Social Security I can almost understand since there’s a governmental component in the benefits. But this accumulated IRA hoard is totally mine. Why do we allow such infringement on our liberty?
