Thursday, May 24, 2012

REAL DEFICIT LAST YEAR: $5 TRILLION...


USA Today has an interesting piece on the 'real deficit'.

Real federal deficit dwarfs official tally
The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.
The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to g government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government's books.
But how does the deficit relate to the average American family when put in the context of their household income? The USA Today article states:
...the government ran red ink last year equal to $42,054 per household — nearly four times the official number reported under unique rules set by Congress. A U.S. household's median income is $49,445, the Census reports.
Think about that. The government is spending $42,054 per household when average household income is $49,445. To balance the budget and live within our means would require that Americans pay the federal government nearly every cent they earn, and this doesn't even include state and other local taxes.

For decades, Congress Critters have used the Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF) as its own personal slush fund to fund wars, pork, corporate welfare and other slop. The dollar amount of the congressional plundering of the SSTF is at least $2.5 trillion. Congress just spent the money and left a big pile of worthless IOU's.

How Your Social Security Money Was Stolen – Where Did the $2.5 Trillion Surplus Go?

America is rapidly approaching the point where it's fully plundered. Taxpayers are tapped out. The SSTF is wiped out. There isn't anything to squeeze out of a bankrupt nation mired in economic decline with mountains of unsustainable debt.

Republicans don't care.  Democrats don't care.  For them, it's all about the raw and absolute power to destroy a nation with endless wars and unsustainable spending.  What do Congress Critters get for their treasonous treachery?  They get their campaign coffers filled with special interest dough, defense contractor dough and corporate welfare queen dough.

From the website of the White House, the complete historical budgets including tax receipts and spending (starting on page 22).

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/hist.pdf

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