Debt shell game

Regarding “Texas’ debt shell game will cost taxpayers” (Page A13, Monday), Sheila Weinberg of Truth in Accounting writes that Texas leaders are not being honest when they hide our state’s growing debt problem. She cites debt and unfunded pension liabilities totaling $137 billion to make her case.

I applaud her effort, but I think she is missing something very important. Local debt (e.g., school district, city, and county debt) around the state exceeds $200 billion, according to our state comptroller, and total unfunded pension liabilities (state plus local) are almost $300 billion. All in, the debt load we’re heaping on our children is an astronomical $500 billion, if not more, which is 30 percent of our state’s $1.6 trillion economy based on 2014 estimates.

When so-called conservative politicians in Texas say we always balance our books, they are just flat wrong. Mike Collier, Kingwood