Well, this will bring out the torches and pitchforks. The government is exploring the idea of taking people's 401(k) money:

You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.

BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."

In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years.

They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.

Boy, if they think the tea party crowd was angry before, wait until that little nugget hits the fan. Here's the take on it over at Wizbang:

So far we have had a government take over of two automobile companies, bank bailouts, and the nationalization of the student loan program. Today we learned that the Democrats are not focused on jobs as they and the president said they were, but used the discussion of jobs as a ruse to distract in order to push through a government take over of the health care industry through reconciliation. And now we are seeing signs that the Democrats are working on a government take over of private retirement accounts.

Ever since Barack Obama was elected, we've seen larger and larger chunks of American life being gobbled up by government. Today's Democrats are nothing more than thug socialists who can't stand that there are still large swaths of the American people still living independently from government largesse and control. Now they are using what remaining power they have in Congress to change that. If the government takes over health care, college student loans, and retirement savings then no one, no matter how wealthy, can escape the thumb of big government.

Time to polish up those pitchforks, folks.