Welcome to the next great financial bubble in America--a fiscal time bomb that could cause your local and state tax bills to double or even triple in years to come.

Soaring public employee pension costs are crunching municipal budgets and causing service cuts or tax hikes across the state. In the Los Angeles County school system, health, pension, and workers compensation liabilities are so mountainous that an estimated one of every three dollars budgeted for the L.A. schools goes to teacher retirement costs. "The three Rs in the L.A. County school system are now reading, writing, and retirement," moans Richman.