FRANKFORT — George Will, the conservative columnist, years ago succinctly described perhaps our biggest political and fiscal problem.

Americans, Will wrote, want a dollar’s worth of government for only 75 cents.

That also explains in part the fiscal crisis confronting Kentucky in the face of a badly underfunded public pension system. Some debate the size of that problem but no one denies it exists.

No one accepts responsibility either. Lawmakers disingenuously insist they made the recommended payments into the system over the years, but they knew those funding levels were inadequate.

They and Gov. Matt Bevin point to pension board trustees who used unrealistic assumptions about investment returns and state payroll growth to set contribution rates. Some demonize “greedy” employees or retirees — but the benefits were enacted by lawmakers.

The problem began in the 1990s when coffers were flush and lawmakers were eager to offer employees and retirees additional benefits. Those helped produce a structural budget imbalance as costs increased while the state’s antiquated tax system failed to produce the necessary revenues to meet those costs.

Then as the bill began to come due, Gov. Paul Patton, politically weakened by personal scandal, failed to persuade lawmakers to confront the growing problem. Instead, lawmakers and successive governors began short changing funding for pensions and raiding restricted funds to balance the budget.

Under Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher (weakened by his own hiring scandal), the General Assembly approved what most now call “tax reform light.” It produced a short-term boost to revenues but not enough.

When Democrat Steve Beshear succeeded Fletcher he confronted not only the structural imbalance but a Great Recession. He proposed to deal with the problem by passing expanded gambling but he could never get lawmakers to do it. So eight years of budget cuts followed — cuts to nearly every government office and service including education, cuts which now add up in some cases to nearly 40 percent.

Twice during Beshear’s two terms lawmakers passed pension “reform” legislation. The last time, in 2013, both Democrats and Republicans stood on the floor promising the hard choices in the reforms would — over 20 years — solve the pension problems. At the time, they warned that the system’s unfunded liabilities would spike in the short term as new employees were moved into cash-hybrid plans rather than the traditional defined benefit plans. But over time, they promised, the gap would slowly close.

Enter Bevin who won in part on promises to stop kicking the pension can down the road. He persuaded lawmakers to increase pension appropriations but the side effect was to enact another round of cuts to other programs even as state revenues began to grow — just not fast enough to keep up with spending.

Initially, Bevin suggested lawmakers also take up tax reform when they dealt with pensions, but as Republican legislative leaders fretted over the electoral consequences of such a move, he backed off tax reform. Now, he and his budget director are predicting more funding cuts in state government and draconian contribution increases by local governments if lawmakers don’t enact significant changes to pension benefits.

As I’ve written here previously, Kentucky leaves about $13 billion of available tax revenue on the table through a labyrinth of tax exemptions and loopholes while operating on an annual budget of $10.5 billion.

But as Will noted, we want a dollar’s worth of government but we’re willing to pay only 75 cents for it. Or as Russell Long, a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, once put it: “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.”

Perhaps the maxim Kentuckians should heed is one of my Pop’s: “Son, you get what you pay for.”

Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnhifrankfort.