This is excerpted from a newspaper article. It describes a new government program being proposed. Can you guess what it is?
“There is a quiet crisis in the making,” [government official] said. “Millions of Americans and thousands of Vermonters aren’t _____________. Besides the personal implications,” he said, “they are going to put a stress on taxpayer-supported services.”
The [government official] would package the new program with existing ________ plans offered to state and municipal employees, which would reduce administration expenses. The program wouldn’t require any tax dollars, [government official] promised.
Sound familiar?
Guess what. This story is not about healthcare. It’s about retirement plans.
This is how the story goes. You’ve heard it all before. There is a crisis looming and only the government can solve it. Don’t worry though because they will just streamline administrative costs and it won’t cost the taxpayers a thing.
Sounds like Clavelle’s healthcare plan from the 2004 gubernatorial race.
The real quiet crisis is the slippery slope toward socialism we have been tumbling down.
I don’t doubt that most people do not have enough saved for retirement. It is a problem and it stems from a lack of education/information about saving for retirement and the fact that so many people think social security is supposed to be enough to retire on.
The plan in the article sounds harmless enough, but we have heard this siren song in the past and we know where it really leads. This is how the government makes incremental steps toward taking over the private sector entirely, creating the socialist utopia they’ve been dreaming about. One industry at a time, they declare a crisis (or in many cases, create one) then offer the solution – a new government program.
I am not saying that the new government program being proposed here is bad, per se. The bad thing is the propensity of modern politicians to use the government to solve all problems. And I, for one, am quite tired of it. My only hope at this point is that the growing movement against this sort of governance will gain a foothold before it’s too late to turn back.
June 15th, 2006 at 4:25 am
Given that VT has one of, if not THE highest average credit card debt levels in the country, it’s amazing to me that people aren’t screaming for more personal finance education at the secondary / high school level here. Programs like the one described are useless if they can’t make people understand how screwed they are if they aren’t saving in sufficient amounts.