Posted on 07/21/2019 3:57:54 PM PDT by Freedom56v2
Former House Speaker John Boehner and former Rep. Joe Crowley are joining forces in a bipartisan effort to combat a looming pension crisis affecting nearly 1.3 million American retirees Opens a New Window.
Boehner, the Ohio Republican who retired in 2015, is part of the Retirement Security Coalition, a leading force that is raising awareness to the underfunded multiemployer benefit plans.
“The job Joe and I have taken on is to try to elevate the seriousness of this problem," he told FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto Opens a New Window. on Thursday. "And Congress really does in fact need to act."
An estimated 10 million people participate in the multiemployer pension plans and 120 plans that cover 1.3 million workers may go bankrupt. There are 1,400 plans that will be insolvent in 20 years, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. “These pensions are becoming insolvent,” Crowley, the former congressman from New York who defeated in a major upset by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 2018 midterms, said. “We have 15 already that have gone south, we have 13 on [their] way.”
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Boehner said the current political climate seems “a little strange” but Congress Opens a New Window. has come together to deal with important issues affecting Americans.
“It’s tough to get anything done in Washington,” he said. “But when you got 10 million retirees whose pensions are on the line, Congress knows this issue is important."
Failure to save the pensions, Crowley said, could have a severe impact on the U.S. economy because it has the potential to leach onto other retirement plans Opens a New Window. .
“A blow to our economy that will mean a lot in terms of loss to the revenue of our country
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
That description is so broad it could include just about any business and union, plus I’m confident that many state and local governments also have significantly underfunded their pension promises. Of course, the feds would just borrow more if they have the same problem.
The US will be extremely fortunate if the problem only involves 1.3 million future retirees.
It’s better to go bankrupt early, and get bailed out early. If / When the tidal wave comes, the public will revolt and there won’t be any money left
Excellent question given the recent performance of the stock market.
A couple of reasons come to mind:
1. Not high enough contributions
2. Early retirement provisions and high benefit payout ratios.
I would like to see all the public employee pension folks get a similar kind of deal if their local agency can't pay the public empolyee pensions. Let the employees start class actions lawsuits against the local government agencies.
A very good question to which you will not get a good answer.
Government employee pensions?
Screw em
rollthem into Social Security.
These appear to all be state run public sector union pensions. That means it's the states that failed to fund them.
-PJ
I don’t have a pension, why should I have to pay for their pension?
3. Schemes and scams to skim the pension accounts. This is not a small thing.
So the firemen just walk away from the fire at the end of the shift? Lord you folks never think. I think you live in some fantasy land where nothing bad ever happens.
Why in Hades should we taxpayers bail out failed pension plans?
Politicians just aren’t scared of debt anymore, but a slumping stock market does scare them. If retirement accounts are going under, they’ll get bailed out. Fiscal soundness is election talk.
Everyone trying to “fix” this is neither trying and certainly not demanding that the multi-employer pension plans - whose boards of directors failed their fiduciary responsibilities and allowed them to slide into the messes they are in - be required by the law that performs the bailout to fix, alter, change, reform and adjust their own pension plans to restore a balance between benefits to be paid and necessary fund balances to pay them. If some pensioners have to take a haircut, so be it.
Without such demands on the failing multi-employer plans, Congress will bail out the PBGC (the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corportion) so it can bail out the failing multi-employer plans, but the essential problems won’t change and everyone will be back later on asking for bailouts again.
“Nice 401k you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.”
Excellent question given the recent performance of the stock market.
A couple of reasons come to mind:
1. Not high enough contributions
2. Early retirement provisions and high benefit payout ratios.
Oh well, how many private sector plans have gone bankrupt and had to rely on the PBGC for funding? Life goes on.........
“Failure to save the pensions, Crowley said, could have a severe impact on the U.S. economy because it has the potential to leach onto other retirement plans.”
When we paid off trillions to banks and auto makers. Airlines and stores. This is a drop in the bucket. If only government workers were paid well in the first place, this would not be happening. And where’s all the money from companies that dropped the pensions? They kept it for themselves. Now if God forbid we get a democrat in office someday. We’ll end up with national Heath care which will be another huge boon for private businesses who won’t have to pay pensions or health care.
These 2 stooges are culprits, not saviors!
Anyone else notice the irony here? Former Congressman are teaming up to try to save pension plans?
Why did they not team up when they were both in a position to actually pass legislation on the subject?
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