(The International Brotherhood of Teamsters issued the following news release on July 31.)
WASHINGTON — Destructive pension legislation that will allow vested benefits to be cut passed the House on Friday night after Republican leaders teamed up with the Bush White House for some political maneuvering.
The original pension legislation, H.R. 2830, got stalled in Conference Committee with House and Senate negotiators unable to agree on a final version, including whether to add tax cuts to the bill. So GOP House leaders put the pension legislation in a new bill, H.R. 4, and got it to the floor for a vote. It passed 279-131. Voting for the bill were 203 Republicans and 76 Democrats, while 16 Republicans joined 114 Democrats and 1 independent to oppose the bill. View how your representative voted.
The fate of the bill remains uncertain in the Senate, where two powerful chairmen and members of the pension Conference Committee, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, and Michael Enzi, R-WY, were excluded from the last minute legislative maneuvering. Grassley wanted certain tax cuts included in the pension bill, but the House did not do so. Instead, the House passed a separate bill early Saturday that included the tax breaks and a reduction in the estate tax for millionaires, and tied it to an increase in the minimum wage.
Senate Democrats have vowed to stop the estate tax bill, but the fate of the pension bill is uncertain. If the Senate fails to act on the pension bill this week, it will not come up until September. We are assessing the situation and will continue to provide updates as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, this flawed pension bill undermines our retirement security, and nobody has the right to take away the pensions we’ve earned.