More like politicians and union bosses lobbied for taxpayer funded pensions to be exempt from laws like ERISA and PPA so that they could play games with the pension fund money and purchase votes from the union members without stating real benefit costs.
The thing is solvency ratios should move like icebergs. Demographics, life expectancy and salaries don't change that quickly. Ok so stock markets move but reviews should be annual to allow for course corrections. So seeing it get so bad in such a short amount of time is a bigger story
Another way of saying it: rich people were unhappy they have to pay taxes.