Earlier this week, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) introduced legislation to protect 48,000 Ohioans from having their hard-earned pensions cut with no say in the process, according to an editorial today on Cleveland.com from the senator. The Pension Accountability Act gives workers and retirees a voice when underfunding requires major pension reforms. When most pensions go bankrupt, they are turned over to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), which insures pensions nationwide and pays (reduced) benefits to victims of bankrupt pensions. However, Central States' impending bankruptcy is so large that it would almost immediately bankrupt the PBGC and leave these workers and retirees with nothing. Portman believes that is not an acceptable outcome. But neither, he writes, was Congress' and the president's solution. According to the senator, the pensions must be reformed. Math is math, and Central States' liabilities far exceed its assets (and the PBGC's assets). Allowing it to fail, Portman argues, would leave 48,000 hardworking Ohioans with nothing.
