RUSH: Way, way back — many, many moons ago — I, El Rushbo, told you that the federal government might someday target your 401(k). It’s a huge pile of money if you add everybody’s 401(k) plans together. It’s a huge pile of money. The government needs money, we’re deeply in debt, and they could do any number of things. They could buy your 401(k) from you. In fact, there was a female professor at some school (I forget her name right now) who had this idea that the government take your IRA.

Because it really isn’t fair. The government’s losing money! There ought not be this pretax deduction that people get. You know, the way you fund your 401(k) is, off the top, you put so much in tax-free. That reduces your taxable income, so you get a tax cut. Yeah, Teresa Ghilarducci was her name. It was just not fair. It wasn’t fair. The government should never have made that deal because they’re really short-changing themselves on tax revenue.

So her plan, off the top of my head, was basically to commandeer your 401(k) and give you the current equivalent amount and then guarantee you a payout. She was from the New School in New York. They brought her up for hearings and testimony. They would commandeer your account and then give you the equivalent and then promise you 3% annual increases and so forth. But, bye-bye tax deduction and all of that. I remember George Miller, congressman from California, loved the idea.

Because, you know, it was just unfair that the government was not collecting that tax money, and it was a mistake they made. “It was a good idea when they started it,” everybody said. “Oh, yeah, because we weren’t saving enough, and this was an inspiration for people to save.” You get to choose a certain amount of money up to a maximum from your salary/paycheck every week. That goes to your 401(k), and you don’t pay any tax on it until it matures and then you start living off of it.

Unless you take it out earlier than you are contracted to, in which case you face penalties. Well, from Bloomberg News: “The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is weighing whether it should take on a role in helping Americans manage the $19.4 trillion they have put into retirement savings, a move that would be the agency’s first foray into consumer investments. ‘That’s one of the things we’ve been exploring and are interested in in terms of whether and what authority we have,’ bureau director Richard Cordray said in an interview.

“He didn’t provide additional details. The bureau’s core concern is that many Americans, notably those from the retiring Baby Boom generation, may fall prey to financial scams, according to three people briefed on the CFPB’s deliberations who asked not to be named because the matter is still under discussion. The retirement savings business in the US is dominated by a group of companies that handle record-keeping and management of investments … 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts.

“The group includes Fidelity Investments, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Charles Schwab Corp.,” and it mentions the others. “The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor are the main regulators of US retirement savings vehicles and funds. However, the consumer bureau — established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act — sees itself as a potential catalyst for promoting a coherent policy across the government, the people said.” Now, I’m gonna tell you what this is a forerunner to.

This Consumer Bureau set up by Dodd-Frank wants to claim jurisdiction over 401(k)s. “The bureau could claim jurisdiction through its Office for Older Americans…” There actually is a bureaucracy called that, the Office for Older Americans, “which was established by Dodd-Frank with a mandate to improve financial literacy. It is run by Hubert H. Humphrey III,” ranking member of the ruling class, “the former attorney general of Minnesota,” and the son of the former Democrat presidential candidate.

So you add Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School and her plan for IRAs, and now 401(k)s — and then you realize there’s $19 trillion there, and we’re running a national debt of $17 trillion. You add to that the fact that the government thinks that they screwed themselves when they created IRAs and 401(k)s in the first place, and you can see where this might be going. That money may not be yours at some point down the road, because the government screwed themselves and they shoulda never done this.

They need money, and this is not the first time this has come up. The Reverend Jackson, you know, has made a big push for pension money. “All that money could be used for repar — uh, redistribution.” So I’m telling you this if you have some money saved up in an IRA or a 401(k). There’s nothing imminent here, but these are the telltale signs. They’re right there on the horizon — and, remember, this bunch is cash strapped.

We also have a regime who thinks that you don’t know what to do with your money. We have a regime and a Democrat Party thinks you don’t know what to do with your guns. You’re not the best person to be in charge of your life. You’re not really qualified to make the best decisions for you and your family, and they are. They are total statists. They believe in the government running everything. They believe in your incompetence to manage your own affairs.