Reps. Foxx, Allen Comment on Taxpayer-Funded Pension Bailout

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 -- Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-North Carolina, ranking Republican member of the House Education and Labor Committee, issued the following news release on Aug. 11, 2021:

Republican Leader of the Education and Labor Committee Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Republican Leader of the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Rick Allen (R-GA) submitted a comment letter to Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) Director Gordon Hartogensis regarding the interim final rule implementing the taxpayer-funded bailout of failing and insolvent multiemployer pension plans that was included in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

In the letter, the Members write: "Republican Members of the Committee on Education and Labor, which has jurisdiction over the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), have devoted significant time and effort to finding bipartisan, long-term structural solutions to the funding and governance challenges facing multiemployer pension plans and PBGC's multiemployer insurance program... Unfortunately, congressional Democrats and President Biden abandoned bipartisanship by unilaterally enacting [in ARPA] a sweeping, costly, and deeply flawed taxpayer bailout of a select group of privately managed retirement plans."

The Members continue: "ARPA created an incentive for mismanagement and underfunding [of multiemployer pension plans] on the taxpayer's dime. It is therefore incumbent on PBGC to limit the use of taxpayer dollars to the greatest extent possible and to aggressively oversee how such dollars are spent."

* * *

Read the full letter to Director Hartogensis here (https://republicans-edlabor.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pbgc_letter.pdf).