A year of work in both houses of Congress that was originally designed to strengthen the private pension system, will, if passed, result in lower payments to pension plans that are already underfunded by as much as $160 billion, reports the New York Times. And a government report says it would weaken, not strengthen, the pension system.

The government's pension agency says the likely result will be more government bailouts of failing and underfunded pension plans. “It takes a better economist than me to understand how reducing contributions by that much is going to protect benefits and put the system on a sounder footing,” Stanford Economist Jeremy Bulow tells the paper.

Iowa Republican Charles Grassley says the law strikes the right balance between making companies pay their obligations and allowing them to remain competitive. House majority leader John Boehner defends the measures as transition to the new rules. But if the pension agency is right, then competitiveness and transition will be bought at the eventual price of government subsidy.

The bigger picture is that a little lobbying can save industries and in some cases specific companies from the kind of general rule that everyone else has to play by. And before long those everyone elses get in on the lobbying game.

Heading the list of exemptions is the airline industry. They get 20 years to make up shortfalls in pensions. But they've held a gun to everyone's head, threatening bankruptcy. And then lots of others complained that they were being made to make up the shortfall in troubled industries. A meat processing company which inherited a plan from a bankrupt company gets to play by the old rules until 2020 because it saved the government taking over the plan.

And the bigger bigger picture they represent is that fat union pension benefits promised a generation ago aren't going to hold up if an industry falters or is subject to the rigors of competition. More and more workers will be planning their own retirements via 401(k) and IRAs. And the new law relaxes restrictions on the financial services industry so it can give more advice and sell more product. Your Congress at work!