In a cruel twist of logic, U.S. workers who never had pensions will likely be left funding the retirements of airline workers who do.

“Judge gives US Air room to maneuver,” reported a headline Friday on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. “Room to maneuver” is a corporate euphemism for a judge allowing the company to jettison three of its absurdly underfunded pension plans. That $2.3 billion debt will simply be assumed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp, a similarly under-funded insurance program, guaranteed by taxpayers, which now has a $25 billion deficit.

Just last week, the PBGC took over the pension of United Airlines pilots, adding another potential $1.4 billion to the taxpayer-guaranteed debt.

All this comes as the Bush administration begins its promised push to create an “ownership society” by privatizing Social Security, the pension system of last resort for America’s elderly.

So, pilots who spent a lifetime earning six-figure salaries will have their pensions guaranteed by taxpayers, while the federal government tries to duck obligations made to people who may have spent a lifetime working, some at little more than minimum wage.

How has it come to this?

Simple. For decades, the nation’s largest companies went to the bargaining table with their unions. In order to seal deals, they granted increasingly generous pension benefits to their unions.

However, at the same time, the federal government allowed the titans of industry to perform an accounting sleight of hand. Even though they promised the benefits, they didn’t have to fund them.

Instead, the money promised to workers in their contracts was put to other uses, including paying dividends to stockholders and annual bonuses to top executives.

Consider, for instance, United Airlines. It was only required to put 33 cents into its pension fund for every dollar it had promised its employees.

The PBGC has already taken over the pensions of some of America’s most storied industrial concerns: Bethlehem Steel, LTV Steel, United Airlines, National Steel, Pan American Airlines, Weirton Steel and TWA. The list goes on.

The government did require these corporations to contribute toward a pension insurance fund (the PBGC), which is ultimately guaranteed by you. However, the basic rate is $19 per employee per year, and it hasn’t changed since 1991.

What kind of insurance program is that? When liabilities go up, so should premiums. When insurance companies are hit by hurricanes in Florida, rates go up the next year.

Not at the PBGC. As more and more “claims” came in, the cost to U.S. industry for this insurance remained the same.

In essence, we have spent years privatizing airline profits while socializing the pension risk. The airline executives and stockholders benefited for decades. Now that the industry has price-cut itself into bankruptcy, taxpayers are expected to clean up the mess. I think we called it “de-regulation” at the time.

Well, I believe in capitalism. Let ’em fail. Let their retired pilots eat airport popcorn. Let their retired stewardesses become Wal-Mart greeters. Let their retired ticket agents bag groceries.

If the Social Security Trust Fund contains “worthless IOUs,” as politicians are now fond of saying, so does the PBGC.

Up with the ownership society!

Rex Rhoades is executive editor of the Sun Journal. Readers should know that his opinions – like those of all columnists on these pages – are not intended to reflect those of the newspaper’s owners, employees or carriers. E-mail him at: [email protected].