America is running a Ponzi scam . . .

Instapundit BLUE MODEL BLUES: t’s Not Just Puerto Rico.

. . . if you don't know who is the mark, you are.

The link goes to one of my favorite liberal intellectuals, Walter Russell Mead. It’s Not Just Puerto Rico
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"Puerto Rico’s rolling bankruptcy crisis is just a taste of the fiscal storm that lies ahead if American state and local governments can’t find a way to bring their own gaping pension shortfalls under control. For decades, rapacious public sector unions and craven politicians on the mainland have also been also been propping unsustainable state employee retirement systems, and—crucially—using accounting tricks to dupe the public and conceal the magnitude of their unfunded obligations. Congress’s proposed relief package for Puerto Rico would require the island to be more forthright about its pension costs going forward, but it would allow state and local governments to continue downplaying the size of their debts."

We have written about this often. Progressivism infects the entire body politic, and unless it is eradicated, it will eventually kill us. The pension Ponzi is only one of the myriad problems facing America here at the End of History. This transition from the progressive era to the new economic, political, social, cultural, technical model is proving to be long and arduous. But a White Knight is riding to the rescue.

"… Last year, nearly 60 percent of state and local governments failed to make their full pension contributions. With trillions of dollars in public-pension liabilities residing off the ledger books, and increasingly risky investments used to fund those liabilities, failing to address public-pension disclosure would be a huge lost opportunity."

Not what you expected? But it will have to do. The change is critical, and there is no way we will see the progressive movement give up its current hold voluntarily. It appears the way out will be through the total collapse of the progressive movement, likely triggered by the existential crisis foretold in the American State Pension Ponzi. 

"The resistance to honest accounting is apparently coming not from Congressional Democrats, but from Republican state legislators eager to keep their pension Ponzi schemes in place—a reminder that corrupt blue model practices are thoroughly bipartisan. Hopefully Congressional Republicans will have the good sense to reverse course and require state and local governments to come clean as well. If not, they shouldn’t be surprised when they are asked to send billions not just to San Juan, but to Chicago, Trenton, and Frankfort as well."

It is bipartisan stupid, the only thing our political class seems to do well. Perhaps the Stupid Party® will reverse course, but they are nick named the Stupid Party® for a reason.

I am not holding my breath.