Isn’t it enough that Congress forcibly takes your income and spends it any way it wants–for the frivolous or ridiculous, extravagant or exorbitant? Now they want to control the way you spend your own money!

Democrat Senators, Charles Schumer (NY) and Herb Kohl (WI), will introduce a bill prohibiting the use of debit cards to withdrawal from one’s 401(k) as well as limit the number of loans a 401(k) participant can take (doing so requires a monthly payment, fees and interest). Because of the crisis in the housing and financial markets, more people are dipping into their 401(k)s. Some financial experts believe this is an unsound financial practice.

Some people make bad financial choices, like getting overburdened with credit card debt, obtaining a loan for an unaffordable house, or investing 100% of their savings in some retirement swamp in the bayou.

But what if you needed money from your 401(k) and you needed it now? What if you judged it to be in your best interest? Your financial choices–good or bad–should be up to you as an adult to decide. And it should be no body’s business but your own.

But Senators Schumer and Kohl won’t give you permission to make those choices. So, you can just go to your room without supper!!

This bill is just another of the countless historic violations of the separation of state and economics, and here are some reasons why this bill is bad:

1. It’s a grotesque trampling of your property rights: your money really isn’t yours–not the money in your pocket nor in your savings account.

2. It’s a flagrant and demeaning demonstration of paternalism: the idea that government knows better than you do what’s best for your financial situation.

3. It’s a total disregard for the right to pursue your life with the only resource that makes that possible: the earnings from your work to purchase the necessities and enjoyments of life.

Here’s my letter to those Senators: “Get your greasy pork-fat fingers out of my pockets!”