Mother of All Bailouts: State/Local Government Employee Pension Systems.

By: Senator Jim DeMint

Today Joint Economic Committee Vice Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and I released a shocking new studyabout what could eventually turn into the Mother of All Bailouts: state and local government employee pension systems. Though hidden from the public by political accounting tricks, state pension systems are already $3 trillion in the hole, and in almost every state the situation is only getting worse.

Many pension systems are already below 50% funded. Eleven states’ pension funds are projected to run out of money by 2020. State and local politicians facing underfunded pension systems pretend to “fix” the problem by recklessly “assuming” unrealistically high returns on the pension funds’ investments.

Below are a few eye-opening charts from the report, and I encourage you to read the whole thing here.