The city of Central Falls, R.I., offers a lesson to the entire United States on the consequences of runaway spending and debt.
Central Falls made lavish promises of retirement benefits to city employees but didn't bother to dedicate the necessary money over the years to fund those benefits. With some shaky accounting practices, the city managed to keep people from realizing just how serious a financial problem it was creating. Finally, disaster struck: The city simply didn't have the money to pay its bills, and so the state of Rhode Island enacted a law letting Central Falls file for bankruptcy.
But that's when the real pain started.
The mayor and City Council were removed from power, and a former state Supreme Court justice was empowered as a "receiver" to do whatever it took to balance the city's books.
The receiver shut down the library and community center. He laid off nearly two dozen police officers, and he raised taxes and reduced pensions for retirees.
Neither the City Council nor city residents had a say in any of that; it was all done by mandate of the receiver in a desperate effort to rescue the city from total collapse.
If any of this sounds familiar, it should. At the national level, the Medicare program and, eventually, Social Security are headed for bankruptcy. The federal government, like the city of Central Falls, has made promises it is entirely incapable of keeping.
But when anyone discusses serious reforms of entitlements to keep them solvent, those proposals are quickly dismissed as "mean-spirited" or as an attack on senior citizens.
And so nothing is done, the bills mount, and our country is pushed toward a day when it will have to make massive, difficult benefit cuts all at once, or else raise taxes to a degree that will paralyze our economy -- or both.
If we get to that point, we will not be able to say that we were not warned.