Friday, April 09, 2010

Obama's union pals plotting pension bailouts

"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama -- $60.7 million to be exact -- and we're proud of it."
SEIU President Andy Stern.

The payback for Barack Obama's union pals continues. From Katie Packer in the Daily Caller:

The silent but economically devastating agenda of organized labor is attended to daily at the highest levels within the White House. Turning to their friends for help with under-funded and mismanaged pension plans, government contracting policies, and initiatives that weaken workers' rights and force unionization on small businesses, Big Labor's looking for payback and they are receiving it.

Just last week, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania introduced a bill that would dump the burden of union pension plans, which are going bankrupt, on the federal government; therefore, placing the costs at the feet of taxpayers. The Create Jobs & Save Benefits Act of 2010 is designed to address the funding problems faced by union-administered, multi-employer pension plans by shifting the costs to the federal government, which starts at $10 billion dollars in the initial outlay, but the obligation could expand as these plans are under funded by hundreds of billions of dollars.

A reasonable person might ask, why is the federal government or in reality, the taxpayer, footing the bill for union-run pension plans?

Because labor bosses have chosen to either keep funds to line their own pockets, dump hundreds of millions into political spending or treat themselves to luxurious and lavish conferences, adequate resources have not been allocated to workers’ pension plans. And as a result, Congress is advocating for working families and small businesses to eat the bill.
Related posts:

Union pensions: The mother of all bailouts
Report from the bloggers' conference call on EFCA and under-funded pensions
Multi-employer pension blues

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