How much?

How about nothing?

That's what happens when private businesses spend $11 for every $7 they have.

"Looming"? It's already here. Municipal bankruptcies are erupting like zits on a teenager. And there isn't enough fiscal Clearasil to hide them any more.

Abrogate the contracts and outlaw the public sector unions. There, that was easy.

When people vote for a Democrat, they vote for a public sector union supporter. That Democrat politician will sit on the same side of the negotiation table with union leaders negotiating wages, benefits and retirement packages. There is nobody sitting on the other side of the table representing the public (taxpayer) and the public trust (treasury).

Unions (and the politicians they have in their pocket) shamelessly take all they can will little thought of what it will cost the taxpayer down the road. They don't care.

That is nothing but criminal; but idiots in the voting booth continually pull the lever for Democrats with one hand while shooting themselves in the foot with the other. Their demands will either be paid or austerity measures put into place that will will cause riots. Good job Democrats!!!

Just heard yesterday on the radio, that Obama gets $200,000 a year from Il. It is a pension from his State Senator days. He will receive this salary for life. Imagine that!

This looks like a lot of blue state issues. I would like to just secede from the blue states and let them have Obama and their problems.

Sorry fools in the unions, we are OUT OF OTHER PEOPLES MONEY! The check you were getting every month is hereby terminated. Have a nice day!

My take on it.

Counties and cities can declare bankruptcy, and forgo the mess. Pensioners will suffer, but law enforcement and paved streets will endure.

States cannot declare bankruptcy, and cannot print money. They can issue bonds. Do NOT buy state bonds. State pensions may have to be bailed out by the FED.

The federal government CAN print money. It probably will.

You can't simply print a trillion or more to cover all these shortages.You have to have some sort of asset to put up. If it wasn't for the foolish QE's bernake has cranked out,he might be able to get his hands on some money.The most he can muster right now is $40 billion a month in a desperate attempt to save Obama's flagging economy.

There's a rumor the gov't could sieze all private IRA's and replace them with government bonds.Just another reason to dump Obama.

Good intro. Looming is not the word. By any standard but phony government accounting the crisis is already here.

I doubt there is enough money on Earth, and certainly not in the US, to cover the opem-ended promises made by our elected officials. And, very conveniently, their own pensions and benefits are among those promises.

The cliche or adage applies. What cannot continue will not continue.

I'll try to get back to the details of the article but I have seen the numbers in other places. The obligations are impossible to meet by any means except by confiscation or by simply printing money.

It doesn't say what rates they are assuming. Just a few days ago there was an article linked here about how much more underfunded public pensions are because they can assume a rate of return far higher than the experience of the past 10 years.

And there was a great article from Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee about how public employee unions lobby Washington to keep the special rules for public employee pensions that conceal the true costs.

I believe the plan is for the democrats to steal money from our private pensions to pay for the public pensions. Their are trillions to be stolen. Some will go to the pensions and the rest to the insiders who will go on a spending spree and leave everyone else broke and in more debt.