occurred in the private sector. neil: they say your successor went a step further and these are union busting techniques and strategies going beyond just bringing in the benefits and some of the perks to killing off their jobs. what do you say? guest: well, first of all, you need to understand that the changes must come about because if someone everyone to negotiate they would not negotiate reductions. the unions would not have support to negotiate reductions so what would they negotiate? they would refuse to change anything which means present law, the present contracts, would stay in place so that is why they need to change the playing field to be able to even get at the benefits, the fringe benefits in the pension programs. neil: i started looking at, just, sort of the facts versus the fiction and one is, the
pensions are out in the public and the public sector pensions are in the dark. just this morning you saw governor christie was, i think on fox news and i saw where he said there is $54 billion just in new jersey and unfunded liabilities this, is a major problem. the federal government is not necessarily their role, but it s important for to us get all of the numbers out so we know the size of the problem. shannon: that is one of the issues is that you don t know how bad the problem s so you want to push for different accounting and so you can deal with the problem know what you re dealing with. if it comes to it, you don t want the federal government bailing out states getting in trouble because of their overloaded public pension programs. right. we re staying up front no more bailout for states. it s not going to happen. and there is a web site so anyone in america all elected officials and reporters can go to the department of treasury
an all-time high, more than $14 trillion, $45300 per person. and in spite of raising the debt limit, and at a g.o.p. retreat house speaker boehner made it clear that any attempt to increase borrow wog have to be tied to major spending cuts saying washington has an illness, the illness spending. american want it scored. and costly pension programs for public employees are now in the spotlight. california congressman is proposing a ban on federal bailouts of public pension programs, he joins us live to talk about it. congressman thanks for coming in today. so first of all very a question. public pension programs and private pension programs are they operating under a different set of rules? one operates in the dark. and one is out in front of the public. surprisingly the private
responsibilities. we re grateful for that right. congressman thank you for your time. we ll look for new mixes seating in the state of the union if that is where it go autos take care. shannon: you, too. shannon: a new miss america is starting her reign today. miss neb! nebraska. . shannon: miss nebraska is just 17, the youngest win winner since the pageant was instituted. she played piano for talent and answered a question about wikileaks. she plans to go to law school. watch out, washington she has aspirations of becoming a politician or a supreme court justice. tensions seem rare these days but taxpayerers have been footing the bill for years. is that right? wrong? we ll have a live interview with a congressman who wants to ban federal bailouts of public pension programs.
exactly how underfunded the pension programs are. congressman, illinois governor passed a law that the democratic mayor of chicago said will increase property taxes in kick by up to 60 percent to cover the pensions. we can pass new taxes. we can add transparency. but at the end of the day, unless you cut the obligation you are going to have to raise taxes to a point where the public will rebell. guest: and part of the problem we have today we do not know what the truly unfunded liabilities are. some of the unions say it is only $1 trillion and semi-10 and some say it could be $5 trillion or $6 trillion or up to