The U.S. Census Bureau today released its Annual Survey of State Government Finances for 2011, and it shows the "revenue crisis" politicians have been blaming on the Great Recession is false.

From Fiscal Years 2007 through 2011, politicians and government pension fund managers blew all the money taxpayers and government workers contributed. All of the $611 billion that was supposed to be invested is gone. So is the $609 billion earned on investments. According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of Public Pensions: State-and-Locally-Administered Defined Benefit Data, more than $1.22 trillion came in to the pension plans and more than $1.29 trillion went out instead of growing to pay guaranteed future benefits. Those promised benefits grew by about $1 trillion over the same period. 

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn needs to know his government pension crisis is no political squeeze play but a metastatic cancer that eventually will waste his state's whole economy.

Spending in Washington state is projected to increase from $31.083 million in 2011-13 to $33.793 million in 2013-15.

Members of a state and municipal workers organization recently got a dose of reality on pension reform at a gathering of public workers who have benefited from defined contribution plans for 40 years. A key fact from the presentations was stated by Ken Parker, city manager of Port Orange, Florida: "Note: the only way a governmental entity can truly fix its cost related to retirement is to change from a Defined Benefit Plan and adopt a Defined Contribution Plan."

Of all accounting frauds state leaders commit to push devastating costs onto future generations, the worst is deluding citizens about the security of so-called catastrophe insurance funds. Hurricane Sandy and a tsunami scare in Hawaii at the same time should be warning enough for governors to start paying the premiums.

A recent report from the Pioneer Institute depicts the urgency of the need for pension accounting reforms. It found that Massachusetts’ unrealistic assumptions for pension board investments, if continued into the future, threaten to increase annual state costs by billion of dollars.

Under Mayor Chuck Reed's leadership, the city of San Jose, California has transformed into a model for other cities and states teetering at a fiscal cliff.Under Mayor Chuck Reed's leadership, the city of San Jose, California has transformed into a model for other cities and states teetering at a fiscal cliff.