This site that may interest you or be helpful for learning about the actual debt:
http://www.moneyfiles.org/temp.htmlIt has excellent daily articles about things you'd probably be interested in.
This site has posted some of the best articles I've seen about how the government hides it's debt:
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Some lies were even pointed out in the FY2003 Financial Report of the United States Government:
http://fms.treas.gov/fr/03frusg.htmlThese are excerpt from a paper I wrote for an Econ class back in October-bullet points for the FY2003 Report
• 2003 government operating cost up $300B from 2002 to $665Billion
• Notes a new accounting standard which records military equipment as an asset and that this resulted in an increase in assets of $383Billion
• Notes that he looks forward to a day when he and the OMB receive the needed financial reports in order to issue the report in December rather than February
• Government revenues down $81.7B, primarily due to tax cuts
• Costs up $225.8B primarily due to fighting war on terrorism
• Reported Federal budget deficit as $378.4B(More on this number later)
• Net debt is $7.1T, but he notes that Federal accounting standards allow the government to measure it’s liabilities to SS and “certain other programs” in other contexts
Notes that government liabilities including all future obligations (over next 75 years, rather than 10 years, like the “official” national debt of $7.1T ) like SS, Medicare, pensions, benefits, etc. are $34.825Trillion!
Further notes that that figure does not include the most recent Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, which will cost $534B over 10 years(75 year value not yet known)
Nor does that figure include the recently passed Corporate Tax Bill, 9/11 Recommendations Bill or the most recent tax cut
• Bush raised Treasury debt ceiling from $6.4T to $7.384Trillion (and as of early October 04 needs to raise it again, but will put that off until after the election)
• Notes that using accrual based accounting methods rather than cash-based accounting methods, the $374.8B deficit should actually be $665B, mainly from pension and health liabilities and military and veteran compensation totaling $290.6B
• Individual income tax revenue, which accounted for 82.5% of total revenue was down 3.7% for a total of $1.481Trillion
• Notes in FY2000, corporate taxes accounted for 10% of total revenue, but now only 7.1%
• Total revenue was $1.796T, down 4.4% from FY2002
• Defense spending up 35.3%
• Social Security costs up 4%
• Health & Human Services costs up 8.5%
• Veteran Affairs costs up 19.6%
• Payments on interest down 10.6% due to low interest rates throughout the year
• Government cost of operations in 1999 was break-even, now net operating cost is $468.4Billion
• DOD $42B for Operation Iraqi Freedom
• Notes that assets increased by $381.1B, mainly due to new accounting principle used by DOD regarding its equipment value
• Notes that Federal debt securities held by the public increased 10.4% and is once again the largest liability on the balance sheet at $3.94Trillion
• Military retiree health component has tripled since 2000
• Explains that government accounting methods evaluate from a cash-based perspective which only considers the flow of funds in and out of government accounts and not future liabilities and obligations
• Current future responsibilities of Medicare: $15.006Trillion
• Current responsibilities for Social Security: $11.742Trillion
• Notes that those numbers are not included in the balance sheet because current accounting standards(GAAP) do not require it
• Notes that 2003 total future liabilities are three times($27.7Trillion) the total liabilities stated on the balance sheet($7.1Trillion)
• Budget deficit as %GDP(3.8%) largest since 1993
• Gov. receipts fell for a third year in a row at -16.5% from FY2002
• The next section is pretty funny. It is on the “mission and organization of the government” and written in a pretty sarcastic way to point out how our government has changed and grown over the years
• It starts by writing:
The Constitution of the United States set out the Government’s original mission:
“…to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
(Report) Today, the Federal Government’s primary mission (managing the security of the nation, homeland, and economy) are still derived from this original mission. However, other missions have developed as the Congress authorized the creation of other agencies to carry out various objectives established by law.
• It then goes on to show, in tree chart form, how the government has expanded from the legislative, judicial and executive branches. In the end there are 98 additional departments and establishments
• Notes that the US Agency for Int’l Dev. turned in its financial statements on time and received a clean opinion on them for the first time in history
• Makes suggestions of how other departments could try to do the same in the future
• Gives a report card on the 26 departments examined in this report. There are five things they were each judged on and they could get a red, yellow or green circle
• Red=Serious flaws Yellow=Met some, but not all criteria
Green=Agency met all standards for success
• #Green: 4
• #Yellow: 47
• #Red: 79 Why is this allowed??? And why is this not reported on???
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
