Reply #24: Or we could raise taxes and put politicians in jail who promise to fund a pension and then don't. [View All]

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But that is just me. Same applies to corporations with unfunded pensions.

Your right though either taxes will go up or pensions will be cut. Unless we have some duper duper decade of stocks there is no other way to close the funding gap. I mean under funding a pension for a year adds up.

Imagine if you carried a monthly balance on a credit card of $1000 but you paid it off in fall. After a decade, no running balance (no shortfall). Now imagine you "underfunded" your payments each month. Put $1000 on a credit card a month but only paid down $600, do that for a decade. Digging out of that whole is tough.

Local/state govt dug a big grave here and there is no easy fix.