A few questions: 1. Do you believe that the Social Security withholding should be held in trust for the people and returned to them in the form of Social Security benefits? 2. Do you believe that the federal government should do their books the same way corporations do their books? 3. Do you believe that Social Security and Medicare promises are liabilities of the federal government?
If you answered, yes to any of these questions, then the national debt is not $11 trillion and the projected deficit is not $1.8 trillion.
A warning to the creators and users of this site: Balanced does not mean balanced. It all depends on how you count. The government uses a very sophisticated accounting system. It is called political math. Do not fall into their math tricks. If we are going to have people really balance the budget, then we need to start using real numbers. The deficit last year was not $455 billion; it was $5 trillion. The deficit this year will not be $1.8 trillion; it will be $12 trillion. If you want to reach true balance the budget, you must use true numbers.
I have worked in federal budget issues since 1992. I volunteered for the Concord Coalition. We thought that we had reached our goal of a balanced budget in 1998. But as an accountant (CPA) I became suspicious. They were saying we were balanced budget, but the national debt was going up at the same time. After months of studying the budget, I determined we did not have a balanced budget. WE NEVER HAD A BALANCED BUDGET. WE NEVER HAD A SURPLUS. Therefore, all of our work to reach a balanced budget was for nothing, because the federal government was not running a surplus, we were still running a deficit of more than $600 billion a year.
That is why I started the Institute for Truth in Accounting. If you believe that the federal government should pay retirees the benefits they have been promised and you believe that Treasury should do its books the same way they expect us to do our books, then the debt number that you are using is not correct. The true number is $72 trillion.
I hope that the folks who have started this great website www.balancethebudget.com will contact me, so we can start having people using the true numbers, not the political math used by CBO and Treasury.
Hello, Truthin08 people.
You're good, you're sincere, you're noble. But I gotta tell ya: it is too late. Far too late. The time for reform came and went back in the Ross Perot and Paul Tsongas (et al) days. The time for reform was 20 years ago. It is far too late now. Your efforts will not -- I'm sorry to say -- have the slightest effect. The U.S. as we've known it is finished. The dollar's collapse is now inevitable, and is indeed beginning right about now. After that, everything changes, dramatically. We will all be reduced to 2nd/3rd-world status. All of us except the rich, of course.
Now, all that sounds terribly doomy and gloomy, doesn't it? But the truth, in my view, is that it is not doomy or gloomy at all. We were living a lie, living an illusion. It HAD to collapse, and indeed we would be worse off for it (spiritually) if it had not collapsed. The real "doom and gloom" would be the prospect of the lies and the illusions going on and on, with our never having to awake to the truth. THAT would be truly doomy and gloomy. This is not the end of THE world; it is the end of A world that is best ended. Good riddance.
It is now our lot to concoct the most intelligent, most imaginative, most creative, most wise, and most magnanimous response to the collapse that it is possible for humans to concoct. THIS WE CAN DO. And it will be our salvation.
There will be pain and suffering, but it will be in proportion to our denial of the unavoidable and the inevitable.
Cease to be in denial. Accept our (material) fate, and transmute it into something wondrous.
Sincerely,
Alan Lewis
Ann Arbor, MI
Posted by alan on 10/9/2009 3:25:59 PM
Post a Comment
What Can You Do?
We're working to bring the financial truth to the elections, and we need your help!
Sign up today for e-letter updates and information on how you can get involved in Truth in Accounting.
