Obama and Willie Sutton

Obama, in his State of the Union address, called for the elimination of the tax break for education in 529 accounts. With all the trouble with the cost of education this decision might seem strange, especially when he reversed his position a few days later. And, as such, it may not seem important. But it really is.
First, some background. There is about one-third trillion dollars in tax exempt 529 accounts and the estimate for the next 20 years is it will be 2 trillion dollars. There is one half trillion dollars in Roth IRAs and there will be much more with time. There are trillions of dollars in tax deferred/exempt accounts in insurance plans and every year the last 6 congresses have proposed to overturn those insurance exceptions.
So what does all this mean? Obama's two decisions aside--because he is certainly not a consistent or decisive thinker--the government is willing to make promises that seem to fit into a general philosophy but is equally willing to violate either the spirit or the specifics of those promises shamelessly. Secondly, these politicians are primarily interested in the money either to direct personally or to forestall the problems their poor or self-centered decisions will inevitably cause. Third, no one can count on these people.