Today, Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Republican Leader Rick Allen (R-GA) released this statement in response to the White House’s summary of the final rule issued by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) implementing the taxpayer-funded bailout of insolvent and failing multiemployer pension plans included in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA):
“Congressional Democrats and President Biden completely abandoned any pretense of bipartisanship by unilaterally enacting in ARPA a taxpayer-funded bailout of a select group of failing and insolvent, privately managed multiemployer retirement plans.
“WhileRepublican Members of the Committee on Education and Labor have spent significant time and effort on bipartisan solutions that offer long-term structural reforms to the management of multiemployer pension plans and PBGC’s multiemployer insurance program, Democrats instead chose a deeply flawed bailout of a select group of privately managed retirement plans.
“These pension plans failed to protect workers and retirees, and their trustees refused to make the changes necessary to make good on their promises. ARPA creates perverse incentives for further mismanagement and underfunding and leaves the taxpayer holding the bag.
“Based on the White House’s summary of PBGC’s final rule, the Biden administration intends to bow to Big Labor’s interests and flout the law at the expense of taxpayers.
“Workers, retirees, and taxpayers deserve better.”
NOTE: In August, Republican Leader Foxx and Republican Leader of the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Rick Allen (R-GA) submitted a comment letter to PBGC Director Gordon Hartogensis regarding the interim final rule.
