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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 29, 2004)
10A Thursday, January 29, 2004 Catch a flick. Our treat Get a $10 Visa® Gift Card 1 when you switch to a checking account that has everything you need. Without the surprises. CampusEdge™ checking is free through January 1, 2005. And it will stay free for five years if your parents have an account with Bank of America or as long as you have a monthly direct deposit. There’s no minimum balance. And there are tons of extras. Like a free Stuff Happens™ card, so if you goof up, we’ll refund your overdraft fee —just this once. So get it all, plus $10. Bring this ad into our banking center near Texas A & M University at 111 University Drive E., or visit any of our other banking centers today. Bank of America Higher Standards 'Offer expires 3/15/04. $10 Visa® Gift Card will arrive within three weeks of account opening. Gift Cards are issued by Bank of America, N.A. (USA) under a license by Visa U.S.A. Inc. Fees may apply depending on how and when your card is used. See terms and conditions on gift card carrier. Any applicable taxes are the responsibility of the account holder. Limit one gift card incentive per new account opened. Bank of America, N.A. Member FDIC ©2004 Bank of America Corporation CECTA10 NATlj the battalJ Senate approves easin; of pension fund burden By Jim Abrams THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — The Senate, acting with rare elec tion-year concord, passed a bill Wednesday to reduce by $96 billion the payments companies will have to make into their pen sion plans this year and next. Sponsors said the measure, passed 86-9, will help preserve pension benefits for millions of workers by discouraging finan cially strapped companies from terminating plans as no longer affordable. “Our pension plans are being battered by a perfect storm of declining interest rates, stock mar ket declines and a weak econo my,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. The bill, he said, “will help the hard-earned pensions of millions of Americans to weather this storm.” The Senate must still work out differences with the House, which passed similar legislation late last year, and answer admin istration objections to a provi sion that would excuse airlines and steelmakers with chronic pension underfunding problems from $16 billion in catch-up payments. For thousands of companies, speed is crucial. They face huge increases in payments to their pension funds if the measure doesn't become law by April. “A lot of companies have suffered” already as a result of congressional delay, said Lynn Dudley, vice president of the American Benefits Council, a business group representing employers and retirement-plan providers. She said her group's "mem bers are withholding opening plants, not increasing new hires and avoiding improvements to their programs until they know what their liabilities are.” Unions hav e also lobbied for the legislation. Although the leg islation will re sult in smaller payments to pension funds over the short run, it gives some financial breathing space to companies that might otherwise go bankrupt, | ay off workers, freeze their pension plans or renege on the promised benefits. Failed pension plans are turned over t o the Pension Benelit Guaranty Corp., a gov ernment agency that insures pensions for some 44 million people in more than 30,000 defined-benefit pension plans. The PBGC finances itself with premiums it assesses pen sion plan sponsors, in much the same way the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. collects premi ums from banks and thrift insti tutions to insure their depositors. Last year the PBGC took over 152 bankrupt single-employer pension plans covering 206,000 people, and saw its deficit rise to a record $11.2 billion. Workers may lose a portion of their benefits when the PBGC becomes trustee of a plan. For example, the agency announced Wednesday it was taking over the plan of a bankrupt North Carolina construction company with 6,300 workers, pension plan assets of $95 million and benefit promises totaling $215 million. The PBGC estimated it will end up assuming $104 mil lion of the $120 million short fall, with the rest made up by lower retiree benefits. Pension plans are in crisis partly because contributions have been tied to the interest rate on 30-year Treasury bonds. But the Treasury Department stopped issuing the bonds in 2001 and interest rates fell pre cipitously, producing smaller returns on pension plan invest ments. Underfunding of pension plans is now estimated to total Senates buystii for pension refon i The Senate passed legislate! Wednesday that is a short-tel two-year fix to protect emptcl from what could become 1 artificially inflated pension I contributions. Employees participating! Linfer defined benefit pension pH e n n g 1 Total workers Private sector worte Aft •91 831 SOURCE Department ol Labor $350 billion nationwide. The Senate bill wouldc lish a new formula thatv make contributions depcn on the investment return fo blend of corporate bond! rates. The PBGC says ths save companies $80 billiai the next two yean * Congress and the administn work on long-term overlni the pension system. The measure is pamoi important to mature indiN such as automobiles, retirees at some compame number current empl General Motors Corp.. example, has 25 retiree every 10 active employee will have to pay out $6bills 1 pension benefits this year. The bill also gives relief requires greater transparent- unions and others imo/ve multi-employer pension iHima |50-6I texas team li An high e A<& ennis jsasor higher behinc Th< m rep nis w Lexinj ei. A kentm lllov. lalurd lunda “T1 |iugh. e re |&M 9 f A O Satui men’ Sout! T have sinc< vars Student behavior same everywher By Ben Feller THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — People who fiee urban schools in pursuit of more wholesome settings may be surprised by this report card: Suburban students engage in just as much sex, drugs and fighting as city kids do. “The desks may be newer, the paint may be fresher and the faces may be whiter, but the stu dents are just as likely to have sex, use controlled substances and break the law,” says the report released Wednesday by The Manhattan Institute, a New York-based conservative think tank. Authors Jay Greene and Greg Forster analyzed student survey data collected from the same group of students in three waves, from 1995 to 2002. The survey, which included an estimated 20,000 stu dents, was sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and other federal agencies. Among the results of the study, which foe on high school grades: — Two-thirds of suburban and urban; graders have had sex; 43 percent of suhi 12th-graders and 39 percent of urban 12th-gn have had sex outside of a “romantic relation: — 74 percent of suburban I2th-gradersa percent of urban I2th-graders have tried i more than two or three times. — 22 percent of suburban 12th-grader percent of urban 12th-graders say they has en while drunk. — More than 40 percent of 12th-gr urban and suburban schools have used drugs. — 20 percent of urban 12th-grade girlsj been pregnant; 14 percent of suburban 12tl girls have. Such numbers are among thoseth higher than many people would likely «jj regardless of the school setting, Greene saidl WHERE THERE'S HURT THERE'S HOPE Bored? Teach English Aim POST ABORTION PEER COUNSELING ♦ Peer Grief Counseling ♦ Help for Symptoms of Abortion Trauma ♦ 10-week Recovery Program ♦ Emotional & Spiritual Support ♦ Free & Confidential Jfofie Ptapncuicif GenteM Call and ask for the PACE (Post Abortion Counseling & Education) Director. 4 week ITC TEFL English teaching course in Europe SEE US AT YOUR CAMPUS CAREER CENTER 1 NOW! $250 Airfare Discount( www.itc-training.eoR il Q r_ O'! QO 205 Brentwood • College Station 02/3"^/ I 2/3 www.hopepregnancy.org CALL FOR PAPERS Texas A&M University Undergraduate Journal of Science All undergrads doing research are eligible to submit their work for possible publication. DEADLINE: February 2, 2004 Rm. 230 Reed-McDonald or email to ujs@stuorg.tamu.edu mm #1 Choice tor over SPRING BREt CANCUN ACAPULCO BE4CH LOSCABOS BRECKfHl r~ ft van Burnt - KEYSTOm* umtm -MOO-52 32-24- www.universitybeachcliiM < IN THE AFTERNOON! 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