Underfunded pensions are a problem only because tax revenue must be spent on maintaining unsustainable infrastructure that was originally built on an expectation of never-ending growth.
If that infrastructure costs were not so high, there would be sufficient money to pay people what they deserved.
Yeah, that's not the point. The point is that taxpayers receiving services should pay for what it costs to pay people what they deserve, not saddle the future with those costs.
But the issue has been that municipal taxes are a zero-sum game. People expect taxes to stay at a constant level unless they are getting additional services. So allocating more taxes in one place pulls taxes from another.
By not funding retirement immediately, you can keep taxes constant and not diminish current services.
But most importantly, the single-most-explanative reason why we services have gotten more expensive is because of this ignored tsunami of additional costs caused by the proliferation of the automobile.
Especially for services (where the value is concentrated at the time of delivery).