Congressional Hearing on GM’s Delphi Pension Top-Up

I’ll be testifying today in a hearing in the House Government Oversight Committee regarding GM’s decision to spend $1 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars to top-up the pensions of Delphi’s UAW retirees (and later, members of the Electrical Workers and Steelworkers unions but not members of other unions or salaried workers).  In other words, a bankrupt company spent $1 billion to pay for the pensions of the retirees of a complete separate company (GM spun-off Delphi in 1999).  Until now the members of the Obama Administration Task Force have been unwilling to answer questions by the Inspector General of TARP as to how this decision was made and whether maybe, just maybe, the decision had something to do with the political clout of the UAW rather than being a prudent business decision by GM.  Testimony by Ron Bloom and others is here.  James Sherk and I discussed this as part of the preferential treatment given to the UAW in the auto bailouts here.  I am told the hearing will be broadcast on C-Span3.

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