- December 4, 2012
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report"When it comes to resolving the national debt crisis, the line between national interest and self-interest is being blurred a little too much to suit the Institute for Policy Studies....The institute's observations will no doubt make many less likely to objectively evaluate any CEO-backed deficit reduction plan, much less embrace it. If they perceive CEOs are bringing their self-interest to the bargaining table, why shouldn't other special interest groups view budget deliberations through the prism of 'what's in it for me?'"
- December 3, 2012
The Huffington Post features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the reportAn examination by the Institute for Policy Studies foundthat the 71 CEOs of public companies endorsing the campaign have set aside for themselves an average of $9 million in retirement funds from their corporations. That would pay each $110,000 a month for life after age 65.
These CEOs are careless, however, about their workers' retirements. Forty-one promise pensions to workers, but only two corporations have sufficient assets to meet those obligations. The remaining 39 carry a combined pension deficit of $103 billion.
These CEOs, the very ones who've accumulated those massive deficits, are telling the federal government how to solve its budget problems. Right.
- December 2, 2012
The Liberty (TX) Vindicator features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the reportBeware of wealthy CEOs who are lecturing the rest of us about tightening our belts.
While America's CEOs are fretting about the government's so-called "fiscal cliff," millions of American workers face a financial disaster that gets much less media attention. There's a half-trillion-dollar deficit in the nation's worker retirement benefits.
- December 1, 2012
The Albany Tribune features article “A Pension Deficit Disorder”
Visit the publisher's website • See the article - December 1, 2012
The Examiner features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the reportA new report released last week by the Institute for Policy Studies examines CEOs of public companies who have endorsed the “Fix the Debt” campaign. The report, “Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts,” finds that these CEOs, while calling for ordinary Americans to take cuts in Social Security and Medicare, are sitting on an average of $9 million each in retirement funds. Maybe even more surprising, most are also running large deficits in their own employees’ pension funds.
“The Fix the Debt CEOs are trying to persuade policymakers and the public that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are necessary to avoid economic ruin,” said report co-author Sarah Anderson. “A better way to strengthen our economy would be to raise revenues through fair taxation of the wealthy and Wall Street, eliminating subsidies for polluters, and cutting military spending.”
- November 30, 2012
Common Dreams features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”
Visit the publisher's website • See the reportIncredulous that Wall Street investment bankers and billionaire CEOs have descended on Washington in the midst of ongoing budget talks to tell Americans that they should "lower their expectations" when it comes to the security of their retirement and future health care, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor Thursday to call out the audacity of corporate-minded millionaires and billionaires, calling them the new "face of class warfare" in the United States.
. . . as a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies aimed to show, the 'Fix the Debt' campaign, which has raised $60 million to lobby for a debt deal that "would reduce corporate taxes and shift costs onto the poor and elderly," is really just a Trojan horse designed to use an invented debt crisis to achieve long-held agenda goals.
The CEOs involved in the group, including Blankfein, are trying to "pass themselves off as noble leaders who are willing to compromise in order the save America from financial ruin,” explain co-authors of the report Scott Klinger and Sarah Anderson. But the reality is that these CEOs are "leveraging the 'Fiscal Cliff'" in order to push age old attempts to avoid paying taxes at the expense of those in need, they say.
. . . “Think about the arrogance of these guys on Wall Street who were bailed out by the middle class of this country when their greed and recklessness nearly destroyed the financial system and now they come to Capitol Hill to lecture Congress and the American people about the need to cut programs for working families,” [Sanders] said.
- November 29, 2012
Thom Hartmann Show features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report[A]s the Institute for Policy Studies discovered, there's good reason why these CEOs want to target social safety nets like Social Security...it's because they don't need them. They're all sitting on massive retirement assets, averaging over $9 million each.
- November 28, 2012
Blue Table Talk features article “A Pension Deficit Disorder”
Visit the publisher's website • See the article - November 28, 2012
The Nation features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the reportThat’s not exactly “shared sacrifice.” A report from the Institute for Policy Studies notes that the 63 CEOs behind “Fix the Debt” would reap $134 billion in tax windfalls for their companies just from a territorial tax system alone.
- November 28, 2012
New Jersey Newsroom features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report[A]ccording to the Institute for Policy Studies, their ideas of change also include massive tax breaks for themselves and their corporations. They are lobbying for a “territorial tax system” which means that they would not have to pay federal taxes on any money they earned overseas and brought back into the U.S. This would amount to $134 billion bonus for these companies.
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Sarah Anderson
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Scott Klinger
In many countries around the world, there is growing momentum behind proposals to place a very small tax on transactions of stock, currency, derivatives, and other financial assets. Such financial speculation taxes are one of the few available options that could generate the enormous financial resources required to pay for the continuing costs of the global financial and economic crisis, including reducing the high rate of job loss, and to achieve key development, health, education and climate change objectives in developing countries. Even at very low rates, such taxes could also discourage the type of short-term financial speculation that has little social value but poses high risks to the economy.