New gov't data shows GOP pension bill would create severe crisis

Sirotablog: New gov't data shows GOP pension bill would create severe crisis: "3.23.06

Let's see...what do you do if you are the most corrupt, bought-off political party in history, and America's pension safety net is grossly underfunded at the very time more and more corporations are reneging on their pension promises? The answer is obvious: you use the crisis to pass new legislation that allows corporations to get out of their obligations to shore up that safety net. And that's exactly what the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress are doing, according to a new report by the Financial Times today.

This sounds ludicrous. It sounds ridiculous. It sounds like something out of a bad Saturday Night Live skit. But, I kid you not - this is exactly what's going on. Here's the excerpt:

'Employers will be able to slash their contributions to underfunded pension schemes by tens of billions of dollars over the next five years under proposed legislation before Congress that was expected to have the opposite effect. The legislation was proposed by the White House last year to lessen the risk of a taxpayer bailout of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal safety net for pension schemes...Assuming an average corporate tax rate of 35 per cent, the data suggest a temporary but significant drop in employer payments into pension schemes over the next few years...Funding of pension schemes would reach a low ebb in 2008 under both versions.'

This is truly a new low, even for this White House. Here we have a major pension crisis unfolding right before our eyes. And the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress, by actually further weakening the system, are openly doing the bidding of the corporate interests that have created this crisis in the first place." ...