HELL NO: This Committee Could Try to Bail Out Private Pensions With Taxpayer Funds (auto-on audio)

That sound you hear is YOUR TAX DOLLARS:

The

Bipartisan Budget Act made headlines earlier this month for raising federal spending caps by $300 billion over just two years.

What is less well known is that it created a committee that could potentially bail out private union pensions with taxpayer funds to the tune of half a trillion dollars.

That figure, $500 billion, is the shortfall between what multiemployer (or union-run) pensions have promised their workers and what they’ve actually set aside to pay them.

The newly established committee is called the Joint Select Committee on Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans.

Originally, unions and employers who hold those $500 billion in unfunded promises tried to include a bailout for private pensions in the budget bill. Instead, they got a joint committee tasked with addressing the problem, as well as the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.’s looming insolvency.

The joint committee consists of 16 lawmakers, with four appointees named by the speaker of the House, the House minority leader, the Senate majority leader, and the Senate minority leader, respectively.

The House members sitting on the committee include Reps. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C.; Phil Roe, R-Tenn.; Vern Buchanan, R-Fla.; David Schweikert, R-Ariz.; Richard Neal, D-Mass.; Bobby Scott, D-Va.; Donald Norcross, D-N.J.; and Debbie Dingell, D-Mich. A Senate staffer said that the names of senators to sit on the committee are not yet confirmed.

Read the rest of the story HERE.