The True Culprit...

Megan McArdle does what she does best: a merciless beating applied to a government agency.  A sample:

Central States is in particularly bad shape, but it's far from alone.  A whole lot of the big union pension plans are in trouble.  This is usually cited as an example of The Trouble With Unions, or alternatively, The Scandalous Underregulation of the Private Sector.  As I dug into the details though, I found out something that surprised me: this wasn't just a story about union mismanagement.  And it wasn't a story about deregulation, either.  Oh, to be sure, the funds could have managed things better (more about that in a little while).  But the reason that they're in such deep trouble now is neither bad management, nor inadequate regulation.  In fact, the opposite is true: managers wanted to do a better job, and the government actively stopped them.  Meet the true culprit behind the crisis in union pension plans: the friendly folks at the IRS.  

You really should read the whole thing...