Dear Bill,
Thank you for your point-on articles! To piggy back (same wording as yours) on your article dated 26 August 2015 "Time for honest accounting of Illinois retirement system debt, in today's dollars and tomorrow's"-- I would like to report that the U.S. Governments' Federal Civilian Employees' are in the same dire situation, as follows:
The Federal Civilian Government Employees' Retirement System is the pension plan for U.S. Governments' civilian employees. In the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's latest fiscal year, the system reported a total pension liability of $1.8 trillion, supported by a "fiduciary asset position" of $865 billion. This leads to a "net pension liability of $935 billion". In other words, the plan has negative equity--and--is effectively insolvent. (The pension plan is funded at only 48 percent and should be considered in critical condition). However, no changes have been made because the government has the U.S. Treasury to back them up.
In Fiscal Year 2014, the U.S. Treasury's General Revenues (taxpayers money) subsidized (bailed out) the pension plan for over $30 billion--so pensions could be paid to 2.5 million federal civilian retirees. About $70 billion of pensions were paid out in 2014. (In FY 2013, the subsidy was also around $30 billion when the pension system was also funded around 48 percent).
Agency employers and agency employees need to increase their share of pension contributions.
Bill, I have supporting documentation and will send to you, at your request.
Thank you for your service.
Tom McKinney, U.S. Army Audit Agency--retired certified internal auditor.