The New York Times reported this week that the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion “viral Communist bailout” bill includes $86 billion for non-Epidemic-related pension funds that are facing collapse.
The New Times said the $86 billion is a taxpayer bailout for some 185 union pension plans that are so close to collapse that more than 1 million retired truck drivers, retail clerks, builders and others could be forced to forgo their retirement income without the bailout. The number of people involved, if you include those who are employed, is more than 10 million. $86 billion would pay all of these people’s pensions for the next 30 years.
The bill’s provisions do not require these pensions to repay bailouts, freeze accruals or end the practices that led to their current predicament, meaning that trouble for these pensions could resurface. Nor does the bill explain what will happen after 30 years when taxpayer money runs out.
As The Wall Street Journal pointed out Wednesday, some of the $360 billion in relief the Democrats’ bill provides to states would also go to bail out troubled state pension funds. In Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut, in particular, much of the relief would inevitably go to government union pension funds.
In order to protect themselves from Republican attacks, Democrats stipulated in the bill that the relief funds could not be “deposited into any pension fund. The Breitbart News noted that the money could be liquidated, and states could pay pensions out of the general fund and use the federal cash for the general fund.
The Wall Street Journal described the bill as “the largest expansion of the welfare state since Johnson’s Great Society.
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