The government didn’t spend their money, (unless your talking Social Security,) The government, local and state, made promises to public employees that they knew they couldn’t keep. The pensions for retired public employees is beyond obscene. Calif. has a deficit of 14 billion and Gov. Brown wants to raise taxes to cover it. Guess where over 50% of the newly generated revenue will go. Yep, to cover pensions for retired public employees.
Pensions like other forms of debt indeed one of the great political frauds in any system of government that allows them.
A fraud because the politicians who promise them get all the political benefits of spending the money of future yet to vote or be elected generations who are then somehow obligated to bare the burden.
There is nothing fair or just about such a scheme, and if you ask me it is apparent that Thomas Jefferson was right in that no generation has the right to incur more debt than they can pay in their lifetime. That as much includes so called “pensions” as it includes any other type of debt.