Thuggish Obama cancels pensions for non-union retirees

As if you needed any more proof of why it's a bad idea for government to run businesses, The Daily Caller reports after Obama took control of General Motors in 2009 the Obama administration canceled pensions for Delphi auto retirees, but only for the retirees who were not members of the union that funded Obama's election.
Emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company.
The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.
When the time came for the governemnt to cut costs, Obama made sure workers who didn't support his campaign paid the price - namely workers who didn't pay into the United Auto Workers union that helped fund his campaign. 
In 2008 the UAW spent $5 million to elect Obama and have pledged to re-elect Obama by any means necessary.
Twenty thousand of its workers lost nearly their entire pensions when the government bailed out GM. At the same time, Delphi employees who were members of the United Auto Workers union saw their pensions topped off and made whole.
While non-union retirees saw their pensions slashed union members saw their pensions paid off.  It's no coincidence the workers who will continue to receive full payments are also the same workers who are more likely to contribute to Obama's re-election.
And prosecutors may be interested in these facts.
The internal government emails contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures. They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding the termination of those non-union pensions, and that administration figures violated federal law...
...The emails TheDC has obtained show that the Treasury Department, not the independent PBGC [Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation,] was running the show.
Under 29 U.S.C. §1342, the PBGC is the only government entity that is legally empowered to initiate termination of a pension or make any official movements toward doing so.
Instead of the "shared responsibility" Obama so often speaks of, Obama singled out non-union retirees for punishment while those whose union dues funded his election were rewarded with full pensions.


No comments:

Post a Comment