UNDERFUNDED / OVER-GENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: Crisis In The States. “That’s the problem with retiree benefits–they can accumulate for quite a while before you notice that, oops, they’re budget killers. Unfortunately for us, as with Medicare and Social Security, now is when these problems have gotten too big to ignore. We have a triple-whammy of rising health care costs, a demographic bulge, and the historical legacy of a major expansion of government. In the early years, as government expanded, generous pensions and retiree benefits were easily expandable; the previous generations of workers were relatively small, while the large new class was relatively young. Now those generations of workers are piling up in the retirement system, and the current group of workers is not big enough to absorb the cost out of their paychecks.”

Plus, from the comments: “If the liberals have been better at controlling theses costs, why are every single one of the big problem states liberal bastions?”