The Biden administration has blazed new trails in wasting taxpayer money. Aside from pouring millions into the war in Ukraine to support a dictator who recently has banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church after having nationalized television news and restricted political opposition, they have now decided to bail out the pensions of their union friends.<\/b><\/p>\n
On Thursday, The Epoch Times<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n President Joe Biden<\/a> will announce the injection of $36 billion in funding to bolster the multi-employer Central States Pension Fund and prevent \u201cdrastic cuts\u201d to the pensions of more than 350,000 union workers and retirees on Dec. 8.<\/strong><\/p>\n According to the Biden administration<\/a>, the funding was approved by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) and is the largest-ever amount of federal aid awarded to a pension fund.<\/strong><\/p>\n The funding will be sourced from the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package Biden signed into law in 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWithout the historic Special Financial Assistance program included in President Biden\u2019s American Rescue Plan, these workers and retirees\u2014who have already earned these benefits\u2014would have faced estimated benefit reductions of roughly 60 percent in the next few years,\u201d according to a White House fact sheet previewing the announcement. \u201cThe Central States Pension Fund estimates that it will now be able to pay full benefits to workers and retirees through 2051.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Established in 1955, the Central States Pension Fund is one of the country\u2019s largest multi-employer pension plans and provides benefits to union members in the trucking, car haul, warehouse, construction, food processing, dairy, and grocery trucking industries.<\/strong><\/p>\n According to its website<\/a>, the fund pays out more than $2.8 billion in pension benefits annually and $5.7 million more per day than it receives in employer contributions.<\/strong><\/p>\n On June 13, 2010, I posted the following<\/a>:<\/p>\n The reference for this story is a May 25 article in the Washington Examiner<\/a>.\u00a0 The article deals with the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC).\u00a0 Senator Bob Casey, (D-Pa.), introduced S. 3157 in late March.\u00a0 According to Thomas.gov<\/a>, the bill is currently in committee.\u00a0 The bill is called \u201cCreate Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The bill would back union pension funds with federal tax dollars.\u00a0 The article in the Washington Examiner points out that in 2006, before the recession, only six percent of these union pension funds were doing well.\u00a0 In a column in the Washington Examiner<\/a> in April, Mark Hemingway\u00a0pointed out that the average union pension plan had only enough money to cover 62 percent of its financial obligations.\u00a0 Pension plans that are below 80 percent funding are considered \u201cendangered\u201d by the government; below 65 percent is considered \u201ccritical.\u201d\u00a0 Union membership is declining, which means that less people are paying into these funds.<\/strong><\/p>\n In July 2009, the PBGC bailed out the pension liabilities of auto parts manufacturer Delphi ($6.2 billion). In 2007, the PBGC had a deficit of almost $1 billion. They are expected to assume $86 billion in liabilities by 2015. This is not good business practice.<\/strong><\/p>\n The government has no business bailing out pension funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Biden administration has blazed new trails in wasting taxpayer money. Aside from pouring millions into the war in Ukraine to support a dictator who recently has banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church after having nationalized television news and restricted political … Continue reading