America’s state pension plans are only 36 percent funded. Forty-seven states have less than 50 percent of the funds needed to pay their current and future retirees. It’s time for Congress to act — not by bailing out these states, but by empowering them to fix their own problems.

Even relatively well-off states such as Wisconsin, South Dakota and North Carolina have unfunded per-capita liabilities that stretch into the thousands of dollars. The picture is much bleaker in states such as Connecticut and Illinois, which have unfunded per capita liabilities that reach $24,000 or higher. The actuarial unfunded liabilities for Illinois’s pension plans stood at $111 billion for fiscal year 2015, according to government estimates.