Take a look around your community: Roads are crumbling. Public parks in disrepair. Ambulance and police dispatch services take longer to arrive. Citizen services are being cut. Yet virtually every city, county, and state in the country spent the last decade raising taxes every year.

So why don’t those annual dips into your wallet ever seem to stem the tide? The answer is the worst kept secret in government today: Public pension systems are insolvent because politicians made promises they can’t keep, and taxpayers are the ones left holding the bag.