The joy of accounting
Congress has written its own accounting rules — which would be illegal for a corporation to use because they ignore important costs such as the growing expense of retirement benefits for civil servants and military personnel.
That's the polite way to put it. The impolite way to put it is that the federal deficit that the Evil Party is whooping it up over (we're only US$318 billion in the red this year, hurrah!) is a pack of lies, and if the government used accounting rules that would not get them arrested for fraud, the deficit is actually, um, US$760 billion. And the debt is equally exciting: US$3500 billion.
But do not fret; there's a silver lining for Evil Party followers here. It turns out that if you use legal accounting rules, the Clinton era surpluses (US$560 billion) in the 1997-2000 era were actually a US$484 billion debt, leaving only US$2416 billion of the US$2.9 trillion deficit that the US government chalked up in the last decade the responsibility of the self-proclaimed "grown up" B*sh junta and their ethics-free minions in Congress.
And what's the yearly US federal budget these days? US$2400 billion, or almost 2/3rds of the US debt. If the US government was an interurban line, the creditors would be out on the line pulling down the overhead to salvage the copper wire. Bravo, Evil Party, bravo! You've got the economic sense of my pet cat!
(via USA Today)