WASHINGTON, DC-AARP Senior Vice President Joyce Rogers released this statement in opposition to the Kline-Miller amendment to the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015, an amendment that the Los Angeles Times says “could be a disaster” that would potentially harm millions of current retirees:“This last minute backroom deal would, for the first time, amend the pension law to allow the earned vested benefits of retirees to be cut. After a lifetime of hard work to earn their pensions, retirees don’t deserve to receive a bad deal, in which they’ve had no say, cut behind closed doors and excluding the very people who would be impacted most.”
In a letter sent to members of the House and Senate last week, Rogers added “[This] proposal…impairs a fundamental tenet of pension law and permits multiemployer pension plans to cut the earned and vested pension benefits of current retirees. Making significant and far-reaching changes to pension law without scrutiny of the legislative proposal and with no opportunity for debate or amendment is unacceptable. This is all the more true given that the proposal may result in a significant reduction in the modest income of millions of retirees. We urge Congress to instead consider all possible alternatives, and to allow time for adequate debate that can produce a fair and reasonable solution to the funding challenges facing a handful of multiemployer plans.
