New "book" from(ish) the treasury department, cash vs accrual accounting and passing yet another crisis to the next administration...

Rep. Jim Cooper has just published the Financial Report of the United States: The Official Annual White House Report, effectively a repackaging with an explanatory preface of the US' financial status. In synopsis (from Buzzflash):

The following figures appear in the official U.S. Financial Report, released by the Treasury Department:

~ The true national debt is $49 trillion, not the $8.3 trillion Bush reported
~ That's $156,000 for every citizen, or $375,000 for every working American
~ This figure has more than doubled in the past five years
~ We paid $327 billion last year on interest alone
~ The true 2005 deficit was $760 billion, not the $318.5 billion Bush reported
~ This is 6.2% of the GDP, not 2.6%
It's all getting worse

What accounts for the huge discrepancy? Unlike businesses, the government uses "cash" instead of "accrual" accounting. This means that the government does not report future spending promises like Medicare and Social Security, or even future spending guarantees like veterans' benefits and federal employee pensions.

"Cash accounting tells you what's in your bank account. Accrual accounting tells you what's in your bank account and what's on your credit card statement," Cooper told BuzzFlash in an interview. "Whether you're promising to buy a road or something at Target, you need to know what you promised to buy. That should be a binding obligation of the government. We've made a world of promises to folks that we need to keep." [emphasis and "~" mine]

Jim Cooper (D-TN) is a conservative Dem (often accused of Rep. leanings), but he is a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate...so one hopes his numbers are good. I am pretty much convinced that the GOP is planning to effectively throw the next election and, in doing so, dump the profound economic mismanagement of this administration onto a Dem president's desk. He/she will, with the help of a likely Dem leaning congress, be forced (to prevent functional bankruptcy) to raise taxes and/or engage in *deep* spending cuts. The GOP will then ride the backlash of these necessary steps *back* into the whitehouse....then roll back the tax increases for the very wealthy while leaving in place the "necessary" increases on the rest of us. I hope I am unduly cynical.

If you prefer the original form of the data, it can be found here. They are really breathtaking numbers...it is a shame no one in this country seems to be able/willing to be honest about such things...smoke and mirrors is ever so much more comforting. This is *not* a political rant...it is a financial rant. No politician, from any party, wants to talk about the real implications of what our debt levels mean for this country. It is far better (and easier) to spew pablum that appeals to either the conservative or liberal masses (and, one hopes, those trapped between), than to try to discuss/explain/promote complex concepts to the voting public. Then again, the voting public, according to recent studies, votes on name recognition alone...not parties, not issues...name recognition. I am this close >< to supporting a return to the idea that only landed gentry should be able to vote...better yet, Plato's benevolant dictatorship. Bollocks, I'm going to go to bed...and put my happy, rose tinted glasses on again in the morn.