Tales of Government Payback, the Automotive Sector Edition
Promises with this government aren’t kept so much as they’re repaid. If you haven’t stuffed a few million dollars in earnest money into the coffers of certain politicians, don’t expect that Washington’s going to look after you.
Decades ago, when Deborah Hampton was a young divorced mother of two, her father encouraged her to go to work for his employer, General Motors Corp.
Just as GM used to be considered a safe stock that parents could buy to help secure their children’s financial future, it also used to be a company where a concerned father could feel his daughter’s future was secure.
Thirty-one years later, Mrs. Hampton is set to lose as much as $1,700 of her monthly pension from auto-parts supplier Delphi Corp., which was spun off from GM in 1999. Her employer-provided health insurance — Mrs. Hampton has diabetes and a family history of glaucoma — was canceled last month.
…
The former executive secretary and 22,000 other Delphi salaried retirees understand these are hard times for everyone, especially those in the auto industry — but they feel discriminated against because they did not belong to a union.That’s because GM is making up a $4.3 billion pension shortfall for its union workers and retirees who split off with Delphi, but not the $2.5 billion shortfall for salaried workers and retirees. About 46,000 union retirees are involved.
Gosh, now why in the world would someone think that a company owned primarily by a progressive left-run government and labor unions think they were getting short shrift because they didn’t belong to a union. It’s not like this government has used massive amounts of taxpayer money to pay political rewards before, right?
Nah. Has to be an honest mistake.
Other Posts of Interest:
- It’s Payback Time and GM is the Loot
- Compassionate Conservatism Just Means Making Different People Hurt
- Hiding the UAW Behind a Giant Strawman Isn’t a Help.
Category: Progressives, The Economy and Your Money, The Rise of the Nanny State
