Op-ed column: Enumerating insanity By David Schlosser, candidate for U.S. Congress
Week of 9th August 2006 http://www.schlosserforcongress.com/media-press/op-ed/060809_Enumerating_ins anity.php When I announced my campaign for US Congress, I told my supporters that I believe the Federal government should use the same accounting standards that it requires of business. More than a few people have asked why I make a point of this rather arcane issue - primarily, it seems odd to most folks that there is more than one standard for accounting. On 4th August 2006, USA TODAY detailed the dramatic difference between the accounting standards for business and the Federal government. Instead of a $318 billion budget deficit in 2005, under the government's accounting rules, the Federal budget deficit was $3.5 trillion for that single year under businesses' accounting rules. In other words, the disastrous implications of a $318 billion gap between what the government takes from you in taxes and what it spends is actually ten times worse than reported. Normal people tend to translate numbers of that size into MonopolyR money. 318 billion of anything is such a vast quantity that it's frankly unimaginable - 318 billion seconds is more than 10,000 years, or five times the length of our recorded history. For anyone to wrap his or her brain around a number ten times that size is even more challenging, so consider the implications for your own budget: * If you took your family of four to the movies, the nice young person at the box office would ask you for $320. * If you're expecting a $250 credit card bill, you'd open that nasty little "statement enclosed" envelope to find a bill for $2,500. * If your rent is $800, your landlord would knock to remind you that you owe $8,000 this month. * If you found a nice used Honda Accord and went to see your banker about a $15,000 loan, you'd probably need to bring along a rich uncle to co-sign for a $150,000 mortgage. Fortunately, you'll never encounter these circumstances. You keep only one set of books. It's too bad that the people who represent us in Washington, DC, won't extend us the same courtesy. During the celebrated boom years of the first Federal budget surplus in anyone's memory, your elected officials assured you that the last term of the Clinton presidency was $559 billion in the black. In reality, if the Federal government had to report its finances the same way Boeing and General Electric and your employer have to report their finances, President Clinton would have told you we were $484 billion in the red. And that doesn't even count the projected shortfall in Social Security and Medicare obligations. As you're relishing how the stock market and Federal securities regulators might punish a company that had a $1 trillion accounting discrepancy . a company like, say, Enron, Tyco, or Worldcom . it's also worth considering the Federal government's justification for keeping one set of books for your consumption and a different set of books for the green eyeshade people. It's one of those justifications so terrifying in its simplicity that you should probably take a seat. The Federal budget does not account for the cost of future pensions and medical care for federal retirees and military personnel, or the demographic train wreck of Social Security and Medicare, because Congress can eliminate or scale back those programs. According to a May 2006 letter from Clay Johnson III, then acting director of the president's Office of Management Budget, retirement programs do "not represent a legal obligation because Congress has the authority to increase or reduce social insurance benefits at any time." In other words, because Congress can take away the health care and financial support it's promised to every American citizen whenever Congress chooses to do so, it does not have to include the costs of those obligations in its budget calculations. In even simpler terms, Congress doesn't account for your retirement because Congress can renege on its obligations to you any time it wants to. That, and if you knew that the government's real deficit since 1997 is running $2.9 trillion - or, $40 trillion if you want to include the costs of Social Security and Medicare just for grins - you might start expecting Congress to do something about it. Congress insulates itself from accountability by feeding you the set of books it wants you to see, rather than the set of books you need to see. It's the same kind of insulation provided by the safe-seat Congressional districts designed to minimize electoral competition. It's the same kind of insulation offered by anonymous earmarks for pork-barrel spending on special interests, friends, or family members. It's the same kind of insulation provided by the regulatory bureaucrats who create and enforce the rules Congress claims credit for passing. It's the same kind of insulation that permits members of Congress to include any statement in the Congressional Record, whether or not they actually say it to their colleagues or constituents. It's the same kind of insulation that awards members of Congress with automatic pay raises so they don't have to actually vote to increase their own salaries - currently about $165,000 a year, or about four times more than the median household income in our country. It's the same kind of insulation that emerges from an attitude that members of Congress are wise enough to decide what you need to know and what you don't need to know. Congress decided you didn't need to know that the Federal government was analyzing your telecommunications and banking activities. And Congress decided that you don't need to know that it's obligated our country to unsustainable financial commitments that it won't account for because Congress can un-obligate itself whenever convenient. Benjamin Franklin said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It's time to ask yourself what Ben would say if you expect that sending your incumbent back to Congress in November will make a difference in what Congress thinks you need to know. Because not knowing about a $40 trillion accounting discrepancy is insane. # # # Libertarian candidate for U.S. Congress David Schlosser, 38, lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., where he is a public relations manager for a global microprocessor company and has been a part-time instructor in the School of Communications at Northern Arizona University. He brings nearly a decade of political experience to his campaign for Congress, and is a graduate of Trinity University and the University of Texas. His wife, Anne, is a corporate training and development professional. For more information about Schlosser and his campaign for Arizona's First Congressional District, visit www.SchlosserForCongress.com <http://www.schlosserforcongress.com/> . Authorized and paid for by Schlosser for Congress, Scott Gude, Treasurer [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
