On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:28:57 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 09:45:03 -0400, "Lu Powell"
wrote:

Anyone who passes this stuff on without checking the facts is nuts.
While I am no fan of Pelosi nor her socialist fellow-travelers, truth is
paramount. No one is well served by passing this trash around. See:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/pelosi.asp


The fact still remains that the government is going to come after your
401k (and any other tax deferred investments) to cover their losses on
Social Security. When FDR proposed SS it was supposed to always be tax
free income. That is certainly not true now if you have any other
significant source of income.
The big lie on tax deferred investment was that your tax rate when you
cashed them in would be lower that it was when you invested the money.
I bet that won't be true unless you live well below the poverty level
in retirement.

Well, my tax rate is a *lot* lower when cashing out tax-deferred
retirement money. Not just the fed tax rate, but no FICA, Medicare,
and state tax. Huge difference.
If you've got a million bucks of 401k money you never paid taxes on
tucked away expect to pay the Fed tax piper when you cash out.
That's no surprise, or shouldn't be.
SS was never meant as anything more than subsistence, and that's
basically still what it is.
I have a buddy who just retired at 67 and gets about 25k a year SS.
But as you might suspect, that's the least of his retirement income.
What bothers me is the SS disability scams sucking money out of the
system. Don't know how much is involved, but when I see law firms
advertising on TV that they'll get you SS disability, it raises a red
flag.
Everybody's different, but I always expected my spending to decrease
drastically when I retired. And it has!
So have my taxes.

--Vic