How ’bout THEM apples, you guys? Here you thought he only sent the big cha-ching to Ukraine – fooled you!

And yes that’s $36 BILLION, with an almighty capital B.

President Joe Biden on Thursday is announcing the infusion of nearly $36 billion to shore up a financially troubled union pension plan, preventing severe cuts to the retirement incomes of more than 350,000 Teamsters workers and retirees across the United States.

…Many union retirement plans have been under financial pressure because of underfunding and other issues. Without the federal assistance, Teamsters members could have seen their benefits reduced by an average of 60% starting within a couple of years.

“Union workers and their families are finally able to breathe a huge sigh of relief, knowing that their hard-earned retirement savings have been rescued from steep cuts,” said Lisa Gomez, assistant labor secretary for employee benefits security.

Multiemployer pension funds are created by agreements between unions and companies and are partially insured by the federal government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The insurance program was on track to become insolvent in 2026, but the pandemic relief money is expected to keep it on firm footing through 2051.

Biden’s raiding the “pandemic relief fund” or the $1.9T American Rescue Plan as it’s officially known. Apparently “Biden Slush Fund for Favored Constituencies” would also suffice.

According to the Central States Pension Plan‘s own website, although they initially began to service the needs of retiring truckers, they now have about 330,000 members from a variety of industries. They have also been experiencing the #sadz because lucrative pension deals negotiated are not lining up with funding.

…Established in 1955 to provide pension benefits to Teamsters in the trucking industry the plan has paid approximately $80 billion in benefits to date. Today, the Central States Pension Fund has more than approximately 1,000 contributing employers representing over 45,000 active participants in a variety of industries, including trucking, car haul, warehouse, construction, food processing, dairy and grocery trucking.

Like many of our nation’s multiemployer pension funds, the Central States Pension Fund has become severely underfunded and is in critical and declining status. Each day, the Central States Pension Fund pays out $5.7 million more in pension benefits than employer contributions received. The Fund pays out over $2.8 billion in pension benefits annually.

Boy. It’s good to be them and have a deep-pocketed friend like Joe. Think Teamsters are special? Check what the other pensions have gotten for bailouts.

…Before Thursday, the program had awarded aid to 36 troubled pension plans, but none of those had received more than about $1.2 billion.

The Teamsters are 35 times more special. Go figure.

Now, I’m not inured to the perils of a private pension in the least. I know what my retired father went through when Eastern Airlines was first sold, went into bankruptcy, and eventually, the remnants of the pension program were handed over to the government for administration. There was even an end date for the dissolution of the trust, but somehow it dribbled along for years. Thank God, right? The Teamsters have seen this coming since before 2017, and have been cutting benefits in one of the efforts trying to keep pace with the loss in income that was meant to maintain the funds.

According to an article out of Buffalo, NY, it seems there was a promise almost a month ago that cash would be forthcoming to other Teamsters pension coffers as well.

Thousands of local Teamsters members will have their pensions restored through an infusion of federal funds, five years after their benefits were cut by as much as 29%…

…The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. said it will allocate $963.4 million to the New York State Teamsters fund, under a program established under the American Rescue Plan Act to support severely underfunded multiemployer pension plans. The PBGC last week approved the New York State Teamsters Fund’s application to the Special Financial Assistance program, setting the payments in motion.

Multiple companies pay into multiemployer pension plans. In the case of the New York State Teamsters Fund, UPS is the largest contributor. Eight Teamsters locals, including the two in Buffalo, are participants in the fund.

Rescue money is suddenly flowing through the window, even as the conditions that caused the shortfalls – and caused pensions to be reduced by an average of 20% in that NY union pension fund – have yet to be alleviated.

…Back in 2017, fund leaders warned that without the reductions, “our fund would almost certainly run out of money.” Retired workers’ benefits, with some exceptions, were cut by 29%, while active workers’ pension benefits were reduced by 18%.

Fund leaders at the time said multiple factors had led to the risk of insolvency: “historic market losses” in 2000 and 2008, an “exodus” of contributing employers, and the loss of a number of participating trucking companies through consolidation, shutdown or bankruptcy.

Alrighty. Let me recap:

1) There are gobsmacking amounts of taxpayer money flowing to bail out Teamsters union pension funds

2) The underlying weaknesses in the funds’ foundations have not been corrected nor mitigated

3) They are going to restore every last pensioner to their full draw

I think that covers it. The above items make the following use of that taxpayer-funded pension windfall infusion absolutely unconscionable from the perspective of SOUND fiscal management:

…Plans call for the federal payment to be made to the Teamsters fund on Dec. 8, according to a letter from the fund’s leaders to members.

If that happens on schedule, the Teamsters members’ pension benefits on Jan. 1, 2023, will be restored to the level they were before the reductions took effect in 2017, the letter said. And makeup payments to cover the reductions imposed over the past five years would be made March 1.

Reimburse them the difference they missed for five years of reduced payments?! That’s FISCAL INSANITY! For example, the one NY teamster in the article had his pension reduced by $1300/mth. Okay. Yeah, that’s a lot. But it’s also a 5 year payment to him of $78,000. Now multiply that, give or take, times how many members? Holy CRAP.

Just blow through it while you have it guys, instead of be glad it’s come back, sock it away, shore up the fund, and go from there.

I can’t get over this.

Nobody I know has a checkbook that size.

Then again, they aren’t using theirs. They’re using ours.