Senior Fellow Lawrence McQuillan, author of California Dreaming, appears on WNWS radio in Jackson, Tennessee to discuss the financial crisis growing in a number of cities and states across America: their underfunded public pension systems. The problem threatens cities and states with bankruptcy because the money that should be in the pension funds isn’t available and retirees have been promised benefits. Bankruptcy judges have already ruled that pensions for public employees can be cut to pennies on the dollar. How to we reform the system? McQuillan has a plan to move to 401k-style pensions that will keep the funds solvent and continue to pay benefits promised to retirees. Nationally, state and local governments are in the red, or in deficit $4.7 trillion, which is money that should be in the bank, ready to pay pension benefits.