A pair of recent columns in these pages hype the $86 billion provision to bail out failing pension plans — which hasn’t got a blessed thing to do with the pandemic — tucked away in the Democrat’s nearly $2 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” as an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars because those “retirement funds (were) earned by working friends and relatives.” Those union carpenters in Chicago and Phoenix are your family!
It’s also been suggested that the pension-fund bailout, which will benefit mostly union members, will help nonunion members, too, because “(it) will help support family members in retirement, boost local economies, and strengthen this country’s commitment to a dignified retirement system for all.”
What hasn’t been explained in these pages is why tax-paying readers should cough up $86 billion to guarantee comfortable retirements for people to whom they owe nothing.
Columnist Craig Farrand admits the bailout is unrelated to pandemic relief, but it’s “not the bulk of the money.” True, but it’s a bigger bulk of the money than the “COVID Rescue Plan” provides for vaccine distribution and testing. Nor has it been explained, or even mentioned, why these pensions needed bailing out in the first place.
According to The New York Times, the taxpayer bailout gives “the weakest plans enough money to…
