It's not just Massachusetts

Remember how I warned about the unfunded liabilities in the Social Security and Medicare programs? That's just the hidden federal bill. The creative accountng used by the states to calculate the health of public pension funds is going to come back to bite everybody:

The funds that pay pension and health benefits to police officers, teachers, and millions of other public employees across the country are facing a shortfall that could soon run into trillions of dollars."

But the accounting techniques used by state and local governments to balance their pension books disguise the extent of the crisis facing these retirees - and the taxpayers who may ultimately be called on to pay the freight, according to a growing number of leading financial analysts.

Just like federal entitlements, the state governments failed to recognize the demographic trends and made promises way beyond their ability to pay.