In the real world -- the world of average working families -- if you go deeply into debt, you either enroll in a debt management plan or risk losing your home or car. Not so in the world of state government.

The government doesn't have to worry about foreclosure or repossession. The solution for the government is to raise taxes and fees and use accounting tricks to create the illusion that our state is "in the black."

Many of us were already aware of the large debt owed to our state's hospitals because of low reimbursement or outright non-reimbursement for Medicaid services. This debt of more than $350 million has finally been acknowledged and a payment plan, though somewhat vague, has been promised. But since our Medicaid population is the highest in the country (per capita), and growing because of recent expansions, this debt is going to be tough to ever retire.

Our conventional debt, such as the bonds that we vote on in November, is nearly $550 million. The payment for this debt is close to $100 million a year, or about 4 percent of the general fund budget. Also, hundreds of millions of dollars in new bonds have been proposed this year by members of the 123rd Legislature.

As bad as the conventional debt and the hospital debt may appear, they are dwarfed by the debt in the account that pays pensions to retired teachers and state workers. Maine has about $8 billion in pension liabilities but only $5 billion invested to pay for them. This gap of $3 billion must be made up and we are on a schedule to pay it by the year 2028. Originally, this debt was to be retired by the year 2018. Then it was discovered that we could "refinance" and stretch out the payments another 10 years. This gave the state more money to meet current expenses (for now), but it saddled future taxpayers with the payments.

Just like with a car loan or a home mortgage, the longer you stretch out the payments, the more in interest you will pay. By adding 10 more years of interest, Maine taxpayers will be paying an additional $2.5 billion (that's with a "B") dollars.

And here's the sad part: The original repayment plan would have been complete by the year 2018. With this new plan, our unfunded liability will still be $3 billion dollars in 2018, the same as it is today. The state's annual payments balloon in the later years, growing from $186 million now to $574 million in 2028.

There's more. Our unfunded liability for health insurance for retired state workers and teachers -- a separate account -- now stands at $3.2 billion. It has nearly tripled in four years and is forecast to grow rapidly. Paying off this massive debt over 20 years would cost us at least another $212 million a year -- about 7 percent of the budget.

These staggering numbers don't even include the latest promise of health benefits to municipal firefighters and police officers. It's calculated that another $80 million or so should now be in the fund to cover those new obligations, but of course the money isn't there.

All told, our unfunded liabilities and conventional debt amount to $6.8 billion or around $14,000 for every Maine household. The payments to get out from under this debt will absorb more than 16 percent of all tax revenues in Maine for at least the next two decades.

The recent Brookings report, "Charting Maine's Future," made no mention of our huge unfunded liabilities, which act like a sea anchor on our economy. Indeed, the Brookings people cheerfully recommend that we borrow another $390 million. The governor himself cites the report as "a blueprint to improve our economy." But building our economy on a growing mountain of debt is false prosperity. Moreover, it is morally unacceptable to rack up billions of dollars in debt, and then just walk away, leaving our children and grandchildren to pay back these enormous sums.

The pressure to tax, borrow and spend is overwhelming for many politicians. It is difficult to say no to special interest groups, powerful labor unions and voting blocks who demand more spending, benefits and investments. And, unfortunately, it is far too easy to make expensive political promises that must be kept by future generations.

State Rep. Jon McKane (R-Newcastle), a second-term legislator, serves on the Insurance and Financial Services Committee.