The $17 billon dollar fund that supports the pensions of thousands of Alabama state and local government employees and retirees has fared well during the almost eight months of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n
But Retirement Systems of Alabama CEO David Bronner, who has overseen the fund for more than a half-century, said Trump\u2019s unpredictable tariffs and the detainment of undocumented migrants <\/a>who are otherwise law-abiding members of the workforce are causing uncertainty in the economy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen in the near future, so businessmen as a whole just don\u2019t know what to do,\u201d Bronner told the Employees\u2019 Retirement System board at its quarterly meeting Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have what we would call in the markets consistency. We don\u2019t have stability.\u201d<\/p>\n Marc Green, RSA\u2019s deputy director of investments, said the ERS fund has grown 8.7% this fiscal year, which started Oct. 1. That is slightly better than the 7.99% growth over the last 10 years.<\/p>\n Last fiscal year, the ERS fund paid $1.4 billion in benefits to 60,000 retirees.<\/p>\n The RSA has a larger fund for teachers and education employees, and it shows similar results this year.<\/p>\n The Teachers\u2019 Retirement System fund has grown by 8.54% to $32.9 billion.<\/p>\n The funds are allocated to a diverse mix of stocks, bonds, private placements, real estate, and cash.<\/p>\n The solid performance for the funds follows a record year in 2024.<\/a><\/p>\n Green said the market\u2019s resilience has been remarkable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been astounding considering the daily headlines and how they change the next day,\u201d Green said. \u201cSo trying to figure out what your game plan is, it changes by the week or the hour.\u201d<\/p>\n Green said companies face tough decisions about whether to invest in projects because of tariffs and how they will affect the cost of doing business.<\/p>\n Bronner, chief executive officer of the RSA since 1973, said he has known Trump for 30 years and has played golf with the president twice.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019ll come up with a good idea, but he tends to overextend it hugely,\u201d Bronner told the ERS Board.<\/p>\n Bronner said an example is Trump\u2019s crackdown on illegal immigration. <\/p>\n He said no one opposes the removal of immigrants who are here illegally and commit crimes and harm people.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, do you do that same thing to the whole workforce?\u201d Bronner said. <\/p>\n \u201cThese people who have been here 10 years, 15 years, never did a damn thing except feed their family and work and pay their taxes as legal as you could get, other than they came improperly 20, 30 years ago in some cases,\u201d Bronner said.<\/p>\n The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday it would hear a case involving many of Trump\u2019s tariffs in November. Two lower courts have ruled Trump exceeded his authority by imposing tariffs unilaterally under a 1977 emergency powers law.<\/p>\n Bronner noted the high stakes in that case.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough the Supreme Court keeps backing up Trump on conservative votes, are they going to back him up on the tariffs?\u201d Bronner said. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. It makes no sense that they would.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cBut then he\u2019s got a real problem. What\u2019s that problem? He\u2019s been collecting billions of dollars from them. He\u2019d have to pay them back if the court rules that you did this illegally. So I don\u2019t know how the Supremes will try to wiggle their way around that one.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court for an expedited review of the tariffs.<\/p>\n Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the government\u2019s petition to the court that it expects to have collected between $750 billion and $1 trillion in tariffs by next summer, The Wall Street Journal <\/a>reported.<\/p>\n Bronner singled out one branch of government for not handling its responsibilities.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a Senate in Washington that are simply not doing their job,\u201d Bronner said. \u201cThey\u2019re supposed to look over everything for us as American citizens, but they haven\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Bronner told the board members he wanted them to understand the level of uncertainty that could affect the economy and the pension funds.<\/p>\n \u201cI tell you that stuff to make sure you understand that everything\u2019s in flux,\u201d Bronner said.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom a businessman\u2019s point of view of investing money, why do I want to do anything besides sit?\u201d <\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The $17 billon dollar fund that supports the pensions of thousands of Alabama state and local government employees…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":215735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[64,255,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-215734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-personal-finance","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115180548350511802","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}