The Deficit is a LIE!!!

[Hobbit]

It's a vicious vicious LIE! Currently, the federal deficit is listed as $318 billion dollars. Not too shabby, considering. However, that's no the actual deficit. This deficit does not include public servant and military retirement benefits as well as many other expenditures. The audited deficit done according to actual accounting rules lists it as $760 billion, but that's not all. Citing some bullcrap about how Congress could change the rules of Social Security and Medicare, those costs are also not included in the current federal budget. If those figures were included, as the auditing accountants are considering, the deficit rises to, now brace yourself, $3.5 TRILLION, over 10 times what congress reported. How do they get away with this? They're the government. They make their own rules. Execs from Worldcom, Tycho, Enron, and HealthSouth have gone to federal prison for doing this very thing. Why do our elected officials get to be above the law? It's deceit on a massive scale that's designed to do nothing more than hide the government's lack of fiscal responsibility with all that pork spending and to launch a massive cover-up on the incredible costs of the failing Social Secuirty and Medicare programs.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-02-deficit-usat_x.htm

This has to stop, and it should all start with a massive tax reform, such as the Fair Tax, which gives power back to the people and makes sure that they all know exactly how much they're paying and what it's being used for.

 

[Mr.Conley]

Doesn't it hurt to know that you're government is lying to you?

Makes sense from their perspective though. Much easier to tell everyone the deficit is shrinking then to actually shrink the deficit. Either way you get reelected.

It's kind of sad though. It's gotten to the point where we can't trust anything the government says. They're too eager to fudge the numbers to come out looking good.

I'm becoming more and more convinced everyday that this country is screwed.

 

[jillian]

The government lied?!?!?!?! I'm shocked, I tell ya. Shocked!

 

[Mr.Conley]

It's practically all spin. I don't think they've gotten to the labor department yet, and GDP growth I don't think they can fool around with too much, but otherwise it's all spin.

It's the little things, like putting an oil lobbyist in charge of the EPA, that really get me though.

 

[Dr Grump]

How do they get away with this?

They don't. The deficit counter in Times Square says the true debt is 8 trillion

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/30-03-2006/78085-nationaldebt-0

The information you posted has been around for a long time. First time I've seen a conservative admit the debt is getting out of control....

 

[Hobbit]

They don't. The deficit counter in Times Square says the true debt is 8 trillion

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/30-03-2006/78085-nationaldebt-0

The information you posted has been around for a long time. First time I've seen a conservative admit the debt is getting out of control....

Not the debt, the deficit. That's just one year's debt. I imagine if you count the black holes of medicare and SS, it's far worse than 8 trillion, and if this is the first time you've seen a conservative talk about how out of control the deficit is, you haven't been paying attention. That and illegals are the two things I've been most opposed to Bush for.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

They don't. The deficit counter in Times Square says the true debt is 8 trillion

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/30-03-2006/78085-nationaldebt-0

The information you posted has been around for a long time. First time I've seen a conservative admit the debt is getting out of control....

That's another thing, apparently they don't include future obligations (corporations would call them liabilities in their books) such as socialist security payments for a gazillion baby boomers. I've heard the number 64 trillion thrown about, although I can't find a source right now.

Hmm, I wonder. Will there be enough political willpower to raise taxes to cover this? (Actually, would the tax revenue raked in actually go down if they raised tax rates enough?) I doubt it. Will we drastically cut benefits? Ha ha. The baby boomers are the biggest demographic, and when they are retired they will have even more time on their hands to get out and vote, just like all elderly people do. No, there will be no benefit cuts, the boomers are going to be even more of a political juggernaut than they are already.

The only alternative: money printing like we've never dreamed of, hyperinflation, and lots of scapegoating of businesses.

This has to stop, and it should all start with a massive tax reform, such as the Fair Tax, which gives power back to the people and makes sure that they all know exactly how much they're paying and what it's being used for.

I think a better solution would be to eliminate the federal reserve system, so that government does not have access to unlimited funding. We broke the last tenuous link to gold in 1971, and spending exploded shortly thereafter. If people want all these wonderful programs, they should be presented with the true cost in taxes, up front.

To attack the root cause of unemployment, the government must be prevented from wasting the capital of the nation. Piecemeal elimination of obvious boondoggles is a move in the right direction. However, because of the vested interest in each boondoggle, the system of pork-barrel politics is quite stable. It is more effective to reduce the government's revenue and leave Congress alone to spend what they get than it is to attempt to influence specific legislation. Revenue from taxes has a natural limit: People individually evade taxes that they consider to be unfair and collectively vote against legislators who support unreasonable tax bills. Tax revenues are responsive to genuine emergencies such as an invasion, however, so they may be considered the measure of how much government people want. To reduce the revenue of a government down to what people are willing to pay in taxes (or patriotically purchase in bonds), the central bank must be eliminated. In the United States, the central bank is the Federal Reserve.

Eliminating the Federal Reserve is more efficient than requiring that the government balance its budget. Balancing the budget is an accounting trick and to talk about a budget while a central bank exists is, quite frankly, missing the point. That would be like successfully besieging a city and then telling one's soldiers to be sure that they pay for anything they take from the people's homes and shops. The soldiers would think that their general was mad. The purpose of besieging a city is to loot it and the purpose of a central bank is to run deficits. And the national debt, lest anyone misunderstand, is all that the government has consumed without the consent of taxpayers.

http://axiomaticeconomics.com/intro.pdf