Bailout Nation, Part VIX
Back in March 2010, Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pennsylvania) introduced S.3157, the Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010. According to the Library of Congress’s THOMAS system, the bill wasn’t going anywhere, having added only Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) besides the original Senate co-sponsors of Roland Burris (D-Illinois), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan).
However, the bill got a boost last week, writes Vincent Vernucccio of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, when Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), Senate Minority Whip, signed on as a co-sponsor.
According to the CRS summary, the bill would among other things “permit multiemployer pension plans to merge or form alliances with other plans.” However, in an opinion piece posted at the Washington Examiner this afternoon, Vernuccio writes:
“The bill would create a special fund in the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC.) PBGC uses private premiums paid by pensions to insure retirees are paid if a plan sponsor becomes insolvent. If passed, the bill would use tax payer dollars to shore up some underfunded union pension plans. The use of public funds to insure private pension plans is a first for PBGC which has not used public moneys in the past.
“Last October the Washington Times was the first to identify bailout language in similar legislation, introduced in the House sponsored by Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND).”
Vernuccio writes that “(a)nti-spending watch dog groups have been sounding the alarm” about the proposed legislation, adding that “50 free market and anti-tax organizations co-signed a letter” this Spring asking Congress to opposed the bills. He adds that with the second ranking Democrat in the Senate as a co-sponsor, the bill is likely to gain traction, and when Congress returns from its summer recess, “a new bailout battle is likely on Capitol Hill.” (emphasis added)
Sounds like the bill's title could easily be shortened to the Save Union Benefits Act since no where in the bill's CRS summary is there any mention of job creation.