getty
How do you write about something that didn’t happen?
On Sunday night, President Trump, after much delay, signed the combo Covid-relief and omnibus appropriations bill. Since I had been bookmarking a variety of articles that anticipated the inclusion of retirement related provisions in that bill, and even more voices calling for the need to resolve the multiemployer pension crisis (which I myself last addressed in October), I looked at the text as soon as it was made available, went to the text search box, and started looking:
“Retirement”? Provisions regarding retirement funds for workers of various federal agencies, including the military. Multiple references to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, to make changes to prevent surprise medical bills. Two small adjustments, allowing retirement plans to make distributions to employees who continue to work after the eligibility age of 59 1/2, or age 55 for certain employees. A temporary change in regulations regarding partial plan terminations. Special disaster-related rules around tax treatment of 401(k) and other retirement plan distributions.
“Pensions”? References to a “suspension agreement” or other sorts of “suspensions” as well as the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Provisions for VA pensions.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation? Only the same appropriation of funds for administrative expenses as in any other year (see, for instance, last year’s bill).
And readers will recall that this time last year, the first major piece of retirement legislation to come about in some time, the SECURE Act, was added into last year’s omnibus bill, because it was impossible to get it passed otherwise, despite its strong bipartisan support.
But even though there’s been the same bipartisan support for a resolution to the crisis in multiemployer pension plans, and the impending insolvency of the multiemployer side of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Fund, there’s been no such bailout or system reform in this year’s omnibus, nor in any prior “must-pass” bill. It would have been particularly ironic to say multiemployer pension participants got a lump of coal in their stockings had the coal miners been the most imperiled, but they received their own individual bailout last year.
MORE FOR YOU
Why?
Back on December 9, Pensions & Investments reported that
“A bipartisan group of lawmakers is negotiating a deal to solve the multiemployer pension crisis while work continues on broader retirement security packages in Congress.
The Senate Finance Committee’s subcommittee on Social Security, pensions, and family policy held a hearing Wednesday on the challenges facing Americans’ retirement security. While talk mostly focused on legislation aimed at improving defined contribution plans, there were hopeful signs of a potential compromise to deal with the multiemployer pension crisis. . . .
Ohio Sens. Rob Portman, a Republican, and Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, each spoke of the need to find a multiemployer solution quickly. ‘A pension system should be part of the work we’re doing on COVID-19,’ Mr. Brown said. ‘There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to do this as part of a year-end deal.”
Added Mr. Portman: ‘It’s time that we get it done and I think we’ve got a good compromise that is consistent with the plan that we all talked about in connection with the select committee that was formed. This is urgent for our businesses, it’s urgent for retirees and it’s urgent for our economy, so we cannot let the PBGC multiemployer program go underwater, which is what’s going to happen if we don’t solve the problem.’”
But it didn’t happen. Just before the omnibus bill was finalized, on December 18, Chief Investment Officer reported that
“The clock has run out on multiemployer pension reform in 2020.
Republican Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee issued a joint statement this week saying there won’t be time to reach a deal to include the proposed reform in an end-of-year legislative package.
‘For the past two weeks, we have engaged in intense negotiations with our Democratic colleagues in the Senate and House to seek a deal to resolve the impending multiemployer pension crisis,’ the senators said. ‘We have reached the point where we are out of time to strike an agreement that can be scored by the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] and reviewed by our Senate and House colleagues.’”
(Thanks to Mary Pat Campbell for this link at her blog post on the topic.)
This is truly maddening. I don’t doubt that Grassley and Alexander genuinely intend to resolve the problem. The same is true of Brown and Portman. But there is no credible explanation of why a solution should be taking this long. Are the Democrats holding onto the hope that the January runoff elections in Georgia will give them the majority in the Senate, eliminate the need for compromise, and enable them to provide a rescue package that’s entirely bailout, with no concessions? Are the Republicans insisting on provisions that would be so harsh as to chase employers away from even the healthy multiemployer plans and dismantle the system? In other words, are these Senators bargaining in good faith, or not?
I don’t know, and, near as I can tell, no one knows except the negotiating group themselves.
As always, you’re invited to comment at JaneTheActuary.com!