Eager to spend more money, President Joe Biden is reportedly preparing to announce yet another bailout for a troubled multiemployer pension plan.
“President Joe Biden on Thursday is announcing the infusion of nearly $36 billion to shore up a financially troubled union pension plan, preventing severe cuts to the retirement incomes of more than 350,000 Teamster workers and retirees across the United States,” CNBC reported.
“Many union retirement plans have been under financial pressure because of underfunding and other issues. Without the federal assistance, Teamster members could have seen their benefits reduced by an average of 60% starting within a couple of years,” according to CNBC.
The specific fund in question, the Central States Pension Fund, reportedly applied for $35.1 billion in relief back in August.
It’s one of many, many, many poorly managed funds that the Biden administration has jumped through hoops to save.
The way it works is that leftist-run unions keep demanding more and more benefits, perks, and privileges, thus driving up the costs of a pension fund. Eventually, the costs become too much, and then a Democrat-run White House rushes in to fix everything with a simple swipe of a pen.
The current round of giveaways is reportedly being funded by the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP), the boondoggle COVID spending bill that was signed into law two months after President Biden took office.
The latest bailout comes only months after the president used the ARP to funnel $90 billion in taxpayer funds into the federal government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federally chartered corporation that insures and guarantees private sector workers’ pensions.
At the time of the bailout, an op-ed appeared in The Wall Street Journal accusing the bailout of being “a giveaway to unions.”
“[T]he American taxpayer will bear the cost of union plans that were insolvent long before the pandemic. The bailout all but guarantees future insolvency or another bailout and constitutes a massive giveaway to labor unions,” the op-ed by Howard B. Adler and Alex J. Pollock reads.
Bailout of pension funds is as American as apple pie.
It all started in 1840 when the first trust fund was bailed out after trustees of the Navy trust fund invested in speculative stocks. https://t.co/RBUMMK6EqR
— Axel Merk (@AxelMerk) July 12, 2022
Their point was that cash infusions do nothing to remedy the underlying problem, which is poor management stemming from a bleeding-heart-liberal mentality.
In the case of the Central States Pension Fund, for instance, it’s “spending more than $2 billion per year more than it is taking in from contributions,” according to The Washington Times. It’s also been “plagued” by “[r]ising costs, a weaker stock market and a drop in the number of active workers participating in the fund.”
The fact is that unions have become increasingly less popular these days, so fewer and fewer Americans desire to join them. But instead of just letting them die naturally, Democrats like Biden are desperate to keep them afloat.
But, according to critics like Charles Blahous of George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, these incessant bailouts are doing nothing more than incentivizing continued bad management.
“The federal bailout of multiemployer pension plans will encourage more of the irresponsible behavior that got pensions into trouble in the first place,” Blahous wrote in a column last spring.
The federal bailout of multiemployer pension plans will encourage more of the irresponsible behavior that got pensions into trouble in the first place. https://t.co/coBiGstfu8
— Mercatus Center (@mercatus) April 22, 2021
“To refer to the ARP’s pension provisions as merely irresponsible is to understate matters. Even if not corrupt in intent, they cannot help but ultimately be corrupting. They will provide an estimated $86 billion of taxpayer money to bail out pension promises made jointly by corporate management and union representatives, actors who spent years understating their pension obligations so as to avoid meeting their associated funding requirements,” Blahous continued.
“The message the ARP relays to pension sponsors everywhere—from private corporations to states and localities—is clear: Don’t bother funding your pension promises. Make the right political connections and they’ll have taxpayers bail you out. The costs of this legislation will be immense, both in dollars and in its effects on future behavior,” he added.
Members of the public are also critical of the president’s spending habits:
How about my ailing retirement fund? Thanks a lot “The Big Guy” @POTUS
— JWP (@JWP524) December 8, 2022
Is there any President that has ever just run around and bought votes better than Biden. $50 billion here, $36 billion there, $400 billion over there. We are never going to see inflation end under this guy.
— CBouds (@bouds_c) December 8, 2022
In my lifetime I have never seen a president hand out so much cash. Every other day he is giving billions to someone, unions, Indians, Ukrain, student loans, green energy all over the world, chip and battery industry. Sorry young ones you all will have so much debt, say thx Joe.
— timmdayve (@timmdayve) December 8, 2022
Wow! Was the unions invested in FTX? How did the shortfall occur? Over leveraged? Is the courts going to get involved? If students cannot get any debt relief then pensions shouldn’t either. Where are the investigative journalists? @LynAldenContact
— middle finger (@UWmixradio) December 8, 2022
Expect more of this, and for it to be inflationary in the long run. When you build pensions as a ponzi scheme and have a population that isn’t growing, it generally doesn’t work out in the long run…
— Joseph Laws (@Precisionguided) December 8, 2022
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