Nathan--
It might be worth spelling out how this benefits the richest. I assume that it's because the people who don't need to draw on their 401k are richer than those who do.

Matt:

You've got it. This is pushing the withdrawal date well past the age at which the vast majority of people retire (especially the vast majority of rich people). Remember, this isn't when you have to take all of the money out of your 401(k); it's when you have to start taking some out.

So for the person who needs the 401(k) for retirement, this amendment won't change anything, because he/she will already have been withdrawing money for a decade or so before hitting the mandatory withdrawal age. But for those with other means, the change will allow them to leave more of their investments in tax-deferred accounts for a longer time.

There's an interesting generational angle to this as well. I don't know what the actuarial data say, but I would suspect that a person who doesn't need to start drawing on the 401(k) through his or her mid-seventies is unlikely to exhaust the account before death. With estate taxes going the way of the dodo, this will enable rich kids (or middle-aged people) to inherit potentially large piles of money that have never been taxed, either when Daddy or Mommy earned the income, while the investments were generating dividends and capital gains, or when Junior inherited it. And since the cost basis for capital gains purposes is reset upon inheritance, the tax burden will likely be quite small whenever Junior decides to cash in. In any case, with Bush's dividend tax cut, Junior can put the money into dividend-paying stocks and live off a stream of tax-free income. Meanwhile, the kids of the poor idiot who had to use up her 401(k) for things like, you know, food will have to get jobs, where they will pay income tax, Social Security tax, Medicare tax, etc., on their wages.

In short, this is a bonanza for the unearned income crowd and not at all helpful to folks who have to work for a living.

huh?

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Jerry Springer, the talk show host who put wife-swappers, strippers and skinheads on the air and then watched the punches fly, will file papers to run for the White House as early as Friday, advisers said.

Springer, 59, a Howard Dean Democrat and former Cincinnati mayor, will not decide whether to actually run until later this month, said Mike Ford, his political adviser.

Springer is airing 30-minute infomercials across the nation to raise money and build support for his possible run for the Democratic nomination next year.

The infomercial, paid for by Springer, is part biography and part fund-raiser. The ad seeks small donations and offers T-shirts, bumper stickers and CDs of Springer singing ``rockabilly'' music.

The infomercial also addresses potential problems by Springer's talk show, known for its profanity, fistfights, cheating spouses and incestuous relationships. Top Dems have expressed concern that Springer is likely to drain votes from supporters of Howard Dean, known for having similar interests and intellects.

The infomercial focuses on a comment by National Review commentator Jonah Goldberg on a Sunday morning talk show several months ago. Goldberg warned of new people brought to the polls by Springer, including ``slack-jawed yokels, hicks, weirdos, pervs and whatnots.''

``A half-hour infomercial doesn't wipe out what he's been doing for a decade,'' one expert said Thursday. ``All it does tragically, albeit accurately, identify left Democrats with his level of entertainment.''

"Remember, it's the GOP waging class warfare, from the rich against the poor."

Right. They are taking all those tax dollars paid in by the poor and giving them to the rich.

Actually, David, they are. By getting rid of the estate tax, which falls only on the extremely rich, and deeply cutting income and capital gains taxes in ways that disproportionately benefit the rich, and by driving the federal budget into a half-trillion-dollar deficit, Republicans have created a regressive tax system ("regressive" here meaning not an opinion that it's bad, but a factual statement that the lower an income a person has, the higher percentage of that income he tends to pay in taxes).

The government is now financed by sales taxes, gas taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, as well as by borrowing from and paying interest to (you guessed it) rich people.

Some of that obviously goes to poor people through welfare programs, housing subsidies, etc. But a large and increasing amount goes to paying interest on the debt (remember who holds the debt? It's not welfare moms). Billions also go to subsidizing large agribusiness corporations, which not only puts money in the pockets of the corporations, but also makes poor people here pay more for food and screws over poor farmers in the Third World. That's one part of so-called corporate welfare, and of course there's more. Then there's all the stuff that benefits society as a whole, such as defense, police, roads, etc.--though even there, one could argue that, e.g., the massive defense budget coupled with the Pentagon's notoriously awful accounting and contracting processes result in large handouts to defense contractors (i.e., more rich people). All those Social Security taxes that poor people are paying--and they pay a much larger percentage of their income into Social Security than do rich people--support a system where the payouts are not means-tested (i.e., you get them no matter you rich you are), and the amount you get is calculated with reference to what your wages or salary were when you were working, so that the richer you are, the higher your Social Security check is likely to be.

So, David, you make an excellent point: Republican policies are taking money from poor people and giving it to rich people.

Nathan, you hit the nail on the head with this comment about 401ks. Why did you have to ruin it talking about income tax credits for people that don't pay any income tax?

Oh well, it's better to be 1-1 than 0-1, I guess.

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