Like so many other states, Maryland seems to have a huge pension problem

Hayley Peterson worries about Maryland's pension problem in the Examiner:

Maryland's $2 billion budget shortfall is chump change compared with the $8 billion in state pension funding lost last year, some lawmakers say.

"The budget problem is completely eclipsed by our state pension system," said Del. Roger Manno, D-Silver Spring. "The numbers are horrific. They are terrifying."

The numbers:

[Maryland's] pension system [is] underfunded by $19 billion . . .

[Maryland has] 350,000 current and retired state workers . . .

The state's pensions are only 65 percent funded

For more on the burgeoning problem of unsustainable government worker pensions, check out Steven Greenhut's new book Plunder: How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation.

Greenhut was talking about the book on on C-SPAN recently.

via Pension Tsunami