Although he sells himself that way, Gov. Chris Christie is not a “reformer.” He simulates being candid, but uses that illusion to cloak a host of crooked problems he’d be hard pressed to explain. And he’s the big hope of the Republican party? Gee, I hope so:

How can anybody fill 88 pages on New Jersey’s fiscal catastrophe and not once use the word “corruption”? That is what authors of the State Budget Crisis Task Force New Jersey Report managed to do.

DIPPERS: Of all factors pushing New Jersey off its own self-inflicted fiscal cliff, the biggest is the hidden pension debt built up over decades.

The report, released Thursday, outlines much of the malfeasance and nonfeasance of state and local politicians over the decades that put the state with the highest taxes in one of the deepest holes of public debt.

But the C-word is nowhere to be found.

Of all factors pushing New Jersey off its own self-inflicted fiscal cliff, the biggest is the hidden pension debt built up over decades.

That totals more than $25 billion based on delusional official accounting.

According to the report, “… the governor and the legislature made major changes to scale back pension benefits, including suspending COLAs for retirees and requiring increased employee contributions. As a result of these changes, the state’s unfunded liability was reduced by 30 percent from $37.1 billion to $25.6 billion, which increased the system’s funded ratio from 56.4 percent to 65.2 percent.”

Unfortunately, official accounting is rigged to hide the true magnitude of pension debt. Based on extrapolation using the state’s own assumptions and data from the latest full-year U.S. Census Survey of State Administered Pensions, I calculate as of this year New Jersey actually is in a $168 billion pension hole.