If this story was only about Detroit, it wouldn’t be so scary. But imagining that bankruptcy-level financial projections are fixable is almost irresistible to all involved–legislators who don’t want to deliver hard news to supporters, executives who don’t want to be remembered as the captain of the municipal (or state) Titanic, budget and revenue officials who don’t want to bring bad news to their elected bosses.  To free-market tea partiers who cluck disapprovingly over governmental sleight of hand, let me say this–Enron, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase.