Posted on 02/23/2023 10:51:51 AM PST by Red Badger
‘The largest private pension bailout in American history’ gave each beneficiary of the Central States Pension Fund nearly $100,000.
Can Americans be bribed with their own money? The powers that be are certainly putting that question to the test. In recent years, we’ve seen inflation-inducing cash giveaways associated with “Covid relief.” We’ve seen the ongoing attempts at profoundly inequitable student loan forgiveness. In December, we saw a $1.7 trillion pork pie omnibus appropriations bill passed by a Congress that had no time to read it.
Lost in all of this has been one spectacular giveaway: $100,000 per beneficiary of the Central States Pension Fund (CSPF). The fund provides pension benefits to nearly 360,000 private-sector workers and retirees, mostly Teamsters Union members. U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, called the deal out in December, noting it was “the largest private pension bailout in American history” that benefited only “a tiny minority of workers.” He suggested it resulted from the insanity of “allowing those who mismanaged pensions to determine whether their funds qualify for taxpayer assistance with no safeguards.”
The $36 billion comes almost two years after the passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. That “rescue” was the Biden administration’s Covid spending bonanza. Biden signed it into law in the spring of 2021, when the economy was already well into recovery. The housing market was booming. The stock market was on a steady upward climb. It was obvious that the “rescue” would cause inflation. It was obvious Democrats were taking advantage of an opportunity to give away public largesse. And did they ever.
Lest we doubt the ongoing influence of the Teamsters in American politics, the recent $36 billion giveaway says it all. It says to the union bosses, who make up half of the CSPF board: “You can watch the pension fund’s health decline for decades. You can make unrealistic promises to employees. You can keep the plan below 75 percent funded. You can depend on a pyramid concept where imaginary new members keep coming in to pay for retired members. None of that matters now. The politicians you own will bail you out with the public’s money. In fact, you can take such largesse that union workers in other multi-employer plans get left with only crumbs. Write yourself a check. And, as a bonus, we won’t ask you to change anything.”
Workers of the world are not united here. This is a cash grab benefiting one group of roughly 360,000 (3 percent) of the 11 million participants in the multi-employer plans.
And Covid, schmovid. Even before the panic and the lockdowns, the Congressional Research Service reported that the multi-employer pensions were underfunded by $650 billion. In 2018, CSPF had been projected to reach insolvency by 2025.
Trillions of Dollars Short
To be sure, this bailout falls under the mantra, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” In 2017 and 2019, massive private pension bailouts were introduced and reintroduced. Both times, a more conservative Senate beat them back in the name of fiscal sanity. Opponents of the bailouts pointed out that the bills failed to address the structural problems that put these pension plans on the road to insolvency in the first place. But by 2021, amid the larger Covid-tide spending spree, proponents found their opportunity. No strings attached.
Now a precedent has been set. The Congressional Budget Office has already said: Sorry, the $86 billion the American Rescue Plan tagged for the union pension plans is not enough. Meanwhile, taxpayers more broadly are faced with a bigger devil lurking in the shadows. America’s public pension plans have robbed the henhouse for years through risky investments, chronic underfunding, implausible rate of return projections, inadequate employee contributions, overly generous benefits, and just plain public-sector greed. These state and local pensions present a problem to be measured in the trillions of dollars.
How much is the Teamsters’ mere $36 billion? To put it in perspective, you could run the state of Colorado for a year on that money. You could run all five states of New Hampshire, Vermont, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Idaho, and still have billions left over. The $36 billion is $108 from each man, woman, and child in America into the pockets of the Teamsters. And the White House bragged about it in a press release.
Mob Rule
Three of the 10 richest counties in America are suburbs of our nation’s capital, and that in large part is because D.C. has become a feeding trough. One of the big piggies, of course, is the Teamsters union. Through the last two federal election cycles, the Teamsters spent more than $9 million on lobbying and more than $10 million in member dues, fattening the campaign coffers of the union oligarchy’s friends.
By the way, if the name Central States Pension Fund rings an unpleasant bell, that’s because it was the vehicle created by the Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa as a means of enriching himself. He used the fund to make loans to his mobster friends and took kickbacks, which landed him in jail. He then turned control of the fund to a mobbed-up friend, who was himself jailed for taking kickbacks. And then the replacement’s replacement was also jailed for taking kickbacks.
Can such a tree bring forth good fruit? Should you and your children pay to maintain the status quo?
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Peter Reichard is executive vice president of the Center for Independent Employees, a nonprofit legal defense foundation that assists employees opposed to union oppression. He has led nonpartisan, public policy research organizations for over 20 years. His body of work includes award-winning studies on pension reform.
Criminals are a big part of the democrat base.
So does the pRESIDENCY come with a bottomless checkbook that he can spend at his whim to help his friends and DONORS?
aPPARENLY SO................
Unbelievable-
But... that doesn’t get you investigated or in prison. It’s legal!
Politics = legalized corruption.
<>In December, we saw a $1.7 trillion pork pie omnibus appropriations bill passed by a Congress that had no time to read it.<>
It’s sad when Freepers post that the US is a republic.
How is this even remotely legal?
It’s Democrats.
It’s what they do.
Laws are for the little people....................
Claim them as dependents. ;)
D.C. has become a feeding trough. One of the big piggies, of course, is the Teamsters union.
When the money is filtered down to the lowest level the result is.
Vote democrat or your fired.
Democrats have been hustling the unions for decades.
And vice versa......................
Traitor Joe.
outrageous crook!
Not the Mafia has been in bed with the democrat party from the 1930’s and both trade money and favors to this day.
Look at who the unions vote for it’s always democrat
Hoffa kicks box
How is this or any bailout legal without Congress' approval (without a passed Bill for the bailout?)
The Central States Pension Fund became severely underfunded while under the supervision of the Department of Labor and U.S. District Court, from 1982 through 2014. The CSPF assets were mismanaged by the government, who selected and vetted the Wall Street banks that squandered an estimated $20 billion through risky and reckless investments, which could have been prevented if The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) had been enforced by the labor department, as was their responsibility.
Was this appropriation just for the Central States Pension Fund (CSPF), or other multi-employer funds?
94 billion over here????
“...Congress approved $94 billion for union-brokered pension plans as part of President Joe Biden‘s 2021 Covid-19 recovery plan, but the law gave the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation discretion to set the parameters by which plans would receive federal stimulus dollars and for how long that money would last. The assistance is known as the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) Program.”
What the Butch Lewis Act Will and Will Not Do
https://www.pensionrights.org/resource/what-the-butch-lewis-act-will-and-will-not-do/
When Hoffa was on trial for stealing Union Pension funds, I was a forced member of that union....to have the job.
We all got dinged an extra $1 a month-—TO PAY HOFFA’S Legal fees.
That was about 1966 or so.
I was FURIOUS.
Thank you.
A friend’s brother-in-law defrauded the plumber’s multi-employer union system of nearly one million dollars.
He employed over 50 plumbers and paid the workers with valid checks, but neglected to pay the benefits to the union, about $30/hour/ worker...He strung the union along for a few months...
One day he and a young “secretary”(NOT HIS WIFE) disappeared?????
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