(MCT) — There is much hype and hope in political circles that a lame-duck General Assembly will spend the next few days fixing the financially troubled government worker pension systems that threaten to drag the state over what Gov. Pat Quinn described as Illinois' own version of the fiscal cliff.

The odds appear to be long, however, that lawmakers will strike a grand bargain solving all of the state's pension woes before the new session starts Wednesday and the latest round of political pressure that's been building for months evaporates. After all, it took decades for the retirement funds to get in such bad shape, so it's likely to take longer than a week to untangle the mess, pension and political experts say.