It definitely doesn’t get the attention it deserves, but it’s among the most severe financial problems facing South Carolina today: The state retiree pension plan is underfunded by a whopping $25 billion. That means, as things currently stand, the state is obligated to eventually pay out $25 billion more in pension benefits than the plan will have on hand to make those payments.

Twenty-five billion dollars is a whole lot of money — nearly two and a half times the state’s general operating budget — and there are no painless

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