NYT: Major Changes Raise Concerns on Pension Bill (would WEAKEN system)

[DeepModem Mom]

Major Changes Raise Concerns on Pension Bill
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Published: March 19, 2006

With a strong directive from the Bush administration, Congress set out more than a year ago to fashion legislation that would protect America's private pension system, tightening the rules to make sure companies set aside enough money to make good on their promises to employees.

Then the political horse-trading began, with lawmakers, companies and lobbyists, representing everything from big Wall Street firms to tiny rural electric cooperatives, weighing in on the particulars of the Bush administration's blueprint.

In the end, lawmakers modified many of the proposed rules, allowing companies more time to cover pension shortfalls, to make more forgiving estimates about how much they will owe workers in the future and even sometimes to assume that their workers will die younger than the rest of the population. On top of those changes, companies also persuaded lawmakers to add dozens of specific measures, from a multibillion-dollar escape clause for the nation's airlines to a special exemption for the makers of Smithfield Farms hams.

As a result, the bill that is now being completed in a House-Senate conference committee, rather than strengthening the pension system, would actually weaken it, according to a little-noticed analysis by the government's pension agency. The agency's report projects that the bills would lower corporate contributions to the already underfunded pension system by between $140 billion and $160 billion in the next three years.

That shortfall raises the specter of more pension plans failing, pushing their liabilities on to the government, according to the agency and to critics of the bills. And some companies with fully funded pensions feel unfairly penalized by having to pay higher pension premiums to make up for shortfalls of others....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/business/19pension.html?hp&ex=1142744400&en=aedadeb0f2299749&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[salin]

1. starve the elderly!

Geez, after you officially retire you should take a job at McDonalds until you drop... we need to protect corporate (record) profits, afterall... :sarcasm:

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Just noticed this is the lead story on the NYT front page today. nt

[leftyladyfrommo]

3. Yea, that is where I saw it, too. n/t

[Nickster]

4. Jeebus, is there one thing they can touch and NOT turn to shit?

Not that I'm surprised for one moment that this bill hurts pensions. It's just another step towards getting rid of pensions all together.