On Thursday CNS News reported on one of the more interesting aspects of President Obama’s budget proposal. The President is encouraging Americans to save for their retirement–as long as they don’t save too much.

The article reports:

Obama’s plan to simultaneously compel enrollment in a retirement account and prohibit Americans from saving more than what he believes is a “reasonable” amount in such an account is published in part of his budget that deals with what the president calls “rebalancing the tax code.”

Although the budget would “automatically” enroll Americans in a retirement account—even if they did not want to enroll—it would allow them to “opt out” of actually making contributions to that account.

When did we allow the government to determine what a reasonable amount of retirement savings is?

The article reports:

The second bullet point in Obama’s plan to “rebalance the tax code” is entitled: “Prohibit Individuals from Accumulating Over $3 Million in Tax-Preferred Retirement Accounts.”

…The budget says that if this part of Obama’s plan is enacted, the Treasury will tax away about $9 billion from American savers over the next ten years.

How is this different than what recently happened in Cyprus?