CITIZENS NEWS

Biden preparing to pay off unions using tens of billions of taxpayer dollars with massive pension bailouts

By jdheyes // 2022-12-09

In the weeks before the November midterm elections, Joe Biden's handlers instructed him to violate the Constitution by authorizing the expenditure of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars with a student loan debt giveaway. The Constitution makes it clear that only Congress has the authority to authorize the expenditures of tax dollars and even partisan outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) admitted last year Biden did not have the power to do it. “People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not.  He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress," she said in July 2021 during a news conference. “The President can’t do it. So that’s not even a discussion. Not everybody realizes that. But the President can only postpone, delay, but not forgive,” she noted further, as reported at the time by National Review. To put a finer point on Pelosi's claim, subsequent federal courts have agreed and have blocked Biden's massive debt giveaway, and now the issue will be going before the U.S. Supreme Court. We expect the justices to rule that what Biden did was wrong. But all that said, now he wants to use tens of billions more in tax dollars to pay off union cronies who vote Democrat, as noted by CNBC: President Joe Biden on Thursday is announcing the infusion of nearly $36 billion to shore up a financially troubled union pension plan, preventing severe cuts to the retirement incomes of more than 350,000 Teamster workers and retirees across the United States. The money for the Central States Pension Fund is the largest amount of federal aid provided for a pension plan, the Biden administration said, and comes from the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that he signed into law in 2021. Many union retirement plans have been under financial pressure because of underfunding and other issues. Without the federal assistance, Teamster members could have seen their benefits reduced by an average of 60% starting within a couple of years. “Union workers and their families are finally able to breathe a huge sigh of relief, knowing that their hard-earned retirement savings have been rescued from steep cuts,” Lisa Gomez, assistant labor secretary for employee benefits security, told the news outlet. Congress may have appropriated these funds, but that doesn't make this any less of a taxpayer-funded bailout -- or just as wrong. What's more, this fund is an agreement made between companies and their unions; they have nothing to do with the federal government, so the vast majority of non-union workers should not have to pony up one red cent to help pay off budget shortfalls, even if they are partially insured by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, as CNBC notes. "The insurance program was on track to become insolvent in 2026, but the pandemic relief money is expected to keep it on firm footing through 2051," the outlet reports. Biden announced the payout in Ohio in July; before this week, the program had agreed to award funds to 36 pension plans that are underwater but none of them had been given more than $1.2 billion. Now, the amount Biden is sending to the Central States Pension Fund amounts to between one-third and one-half of the federal aid program's total estimated cost. "The retirement plan has participants in almost every state, with the largest concentration in the Midwest. There are about 40,000 participants in both Michigan and Ohio, nearly 28,000 in Missouri, 25,000 in Illinois and about 22,000 each in Texas and Wisconsin, according to figures provided by the White House," CNBC reported. Meanwhile, thanks to the massive spending by Biden and his Democratic Party, every American in the country is paying more for everything they need, with inflation still running at decade-long highs. Think about these outrageous taxpayer giveaways to special interests the next time you go to the grocery store or the gas station. And remember them when you vote. Sources include: NationalReview.com CNBC.com

democrats White House risk pension money supply inflation pensions labor unions unions taxpayer funds Democratic benefactors Democrat constituency pension bailout