Tag Archives: Right Wing

Retirement, Union, UPS

Can They Grab Your Pension?

Clawbacks become more common as plans discover they overpaid recipients

by Carole Fleck, AARP Bulletin, March 2015
Millions Could See Cuts

Tucked into the massive budget bill passed by Congress in December was a provision permitting certain financially troubled multiemployer pension plans to cut existing benefits potentially to hundreds of thousands of retirees who are under age 80.

Shifting burden

That 11th-hour provision toppled 40 years of protections for retirees already receiving benefits and may alter the course of the U.S. retirement system, retirement advocates say. “Congress has placed the burden of rescuing underfunded multiemployer plans on the people who can least afford it — retirees and surviving spouses who rely on their pensions for food, medication and other necessities,” says Karen Friedman, executive vice president at the Pension Rights Center in Washington, which fought against the legislation along with AARP and other groups.

Multiemployer plans — there are about 1,400 in the U.S. — are group pensions that several companies within a single or related industry pay into, mostly to cover union workers. But shrinking union membership, market declines and other issues have put some 150 to 200 plans — covering about 1.5 million people — in peril.

Out of money

Those plans could run out of money within 20 years, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures private pensions up to certain limits when employer plans go bankrupt. Retirees won’t see immediate cuts to their pensions because it’s a complex process to modify benefits.

Vote on cuts

For example, plans with at least 10,000 workers and retirees must permit all participants to vote on cuts before they’re implemented. Even if a majority oppose it, the Treasury secretary could override the vote and uphold trustees’ decisions to reduce payouts, in order to prevent insolvency. Under the provision, retirees ages 75 to 79 likely will see smaller cuts than those 74 and under. Pensioners in single-employer plans won’t be affected.

Action, Corporate Greed, Political

Dream On Mr. Reich Until “Citizens United” Is Repealed, No Change

Robert Reich
The Republican congress that takes over this week will try to drive a generational wedge through the electorate. They’re cooking up arguments that the nation can’t afford to provide our children adequate health care and education if we’re going to meet the demands of the baby-boomer elderly for Medicare and Social Security (thereby trying to justify cuts in all these programs even as they cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations). This is utter nonsense, for the following reasons:
(1) Social Security’s pending shortfalls don’t begin for another 20 years, and they can be avoided entirely if the cap on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes (for 2015, $118,500) is lifted.
(2) Medicare’s costs are slowing, and they’d be even lower if the government allowed Medicare to use its bargaining power to negotiate lower prices from drug companies and other suppliers.
(3) The best way to assure there’s enough money for our childrens’ health care and education is to raise taxes on the wealthy, who have never been as rich. State and federal taxes on the wealthy now take a lower percentage of their income than at any time since the 1920s.
Don’t succumb to the Republican’s upcoming generational-divide tactics. The nation as a whole is wealthy enough to provide for both our children and our seniors in years to come, if the rich and corporations pay their fair shares.

Action, Corporate Greed, Political

Thom Says It All

If ever you aren’t sure why elections matter, just take a look at our court system. Earlier this week, three judges – all appointed by Democrats – stood up for voting rights in North Carolina. Only days earlier, the most conservative members of the Supreme Court issued a stay to slash early voting in Ohio.
The three-judge panel on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed North Carolina’s new voting laws, and put a stop to two of the provisions that would have disenfranchised many voters in the upcoming election. While the democratic appointees declared “the right to vote is fundamental,” the right-wing justices on the Supreme Court allowed Ohio’s restrictive voting laws to stay in effect this November.
To make matters worse, our nation’s highest court didn’t even hear arguments in the Ohio case, or provide any justification for their ruling. The distinction is clear. Judges appointed by Democrats understand that voting is a fundamental right in our nation. Judges who were appointed by Republicans see no problem with limiting our ability to participate in the democratic process.
Elections matter for many reasons, but the effect they have on our judicial system may be the most important reason why we have to get out and vote this November.
-Thom