Northwest Indiana Discussion

Dear Silas,

You work hard for your money. If you have invested your earnings in an employer-sponsored pension plan, that money belongs to you, not your employer. The company you work for should not be able to take your money away if it declares bankruptcy or restructures. Unfortunately, honest, hardworking Americans like you lose their pensions, their personal retirement investments, to faltering companies that use loopholes in the system to deny people the money they are due. This scenario happens all too frequently.

I believe that this system of bailouts for corporations that come at the expense of their employees must stop. People in Washington must act quickly to defend working Americans and close the loopholes that allow employers to dump pensions. You deserve a comfortable retirement after many years in the workforce, so I am leading efforts to make the pension system more transparent and accountable and make it more difficult for companies to abandon the pensions they promise their employees.

I have introduced the Employee Pension Security Act (H.R. 5754) to ensure that people’s pensions are protected and they do not end up losing their retirement savings because of events outside of their control. My bill would accomplish the following:

Create employee trusteeship of pension plans and expand their role in the management of their pensions by creating joint trustees on pension boards.

Require retirement plan sponsors to supply participants with current information about the plan and establish penalties for failure to do so.

Strengthen pensioner protections against abuses of the bankruptcy and termination process.
Require failing companies to consider alternatives to pension termination and empower pensioners to seek alternatives.

Allow for the recovery of benefit liabilities that are not guaranteed by holding a company liable for the amount not covered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. In cases of reorganization, an employer would make up payments and have them worked into reorganization plan.

My Employee Pension Security Act will make sure that your pension plan is intact and you can enjoy your golden years. No company should be able to take your money away because it is failing and I will not allow them to take it.

Sincerely,

Pete Visclosky
Member of Congress

You work hard for your money. If you have invested your earnings in an employer-sponsored pension plan, that money belongs to you, not your employer. The company you work for should not be able to take your money away...

Funny that he doesn't seem to have too much of a problem spending your hard earned money through taxation.