"Illinois is in a $3.2 billion financial hole. A Fair Tax could fix that and reverse the damage." Those words or very similar ones are the central message in social media and TV ads by Think Big Illinois, the primary group supporting a progressive income tax for Illinois, whose backers include Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

If only it were even close to true. Most Illinoisans of any political stripe would probably be happy to pay up and call it a day on our fiscal crisis, no matter how the burden was distributed.

It's the claim that the state's financial hole is just $3.2 billion that's so dishonest. It's preposterous—off by several multiples, depending on exactly what you choose to count.

The annual funding shortfall for the state's five pensions alone is $4.7 billion per year. That's based on the "actuarially determined contributions" contained in the most recent actuarial reports, and they're based on assumptions widely regarded as far too optimistic. But the new tax would raise just $3.4 billion per year, according to the Pritzker administration. In other words, the new tax wouldn't come close to solving the state's pension crisis alone, never mind the 666 local pensions across the state.

Or consider additional money needed under the new school funding formula. It now turns out that current funding is already $7.3 billion short of the "evidence-based" formula in the new law, according to the left-leaning Center for Tax & Budget Accountability, which had a major role in drafting the law. That alone is over twice the new revenue claimed by graduated income tax supporters.

The biggest reason why the $3.2 billion "hole" is so dishonest is that it's based on phony government budget accounting. This can't be said often enough: Government budgets mean little because they are just annual cash spending plans. They ignore growing debts and count borrowed money, asset sales and raids on segregated funds as income.

Do you "balance" your budget by running up your credit card debt, selling the furniture in your home or raiding your spouse's bank account? No problem under those government budget standards. Spendthrift, dishonest politicians happily exploit the myth.

If you instead measure Illinois' "hole" on a proper, accrual basis, it would be roughly $10 billion. Add in the other spending promises Pritzker made during the campaign and estimates go up to as high as $19 billion. Actual accrual-based losses, as shown in the state's audited financial statements, have averaged $12.5 billion over the last 10 years.

Most of that true hole is those growing, unfunded, pension and related health care liabilities. The state doesn't even pay interest that effectively accrues on them. If it did, that alone would easily consume the $3.4 billion of projected revenue from the graduated income tax.

To address that, the Pritzker administration said it would designate $200 million per year from the new tax revenue to pensions beyond what's currently scheduled. That should insult voters' intelligence, being almost on the scale of a rounding error.

Reasonable pension reforms like Rhode Island made in 2011 with bipartisan support would, alone, cut our unfunded state pension liabilities by close to 40 percent and save more than the $3.4 billion of revenue projected for the new tax. Wirepoints will be detailing that soon. That would require a constitutional amendment to our pension protection clause, however, which our establishment won't even consider.

Instead, Illinois appears poised for a tax increase that supposedly will fix the hole and reverse the damage. Those who buy that will quickly learn they were duped.

Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints, an independent research and analysis organization.