Are you sitting comfortably? If not, try to relax before carrying on reading the rest of this post. Take a deep breath and perhaps two or three Valium.
Now. Here we go. The US government makes up the accounting rules that it applies to itself as it goes along. It doesn't use what are known as Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP). If you take these rules, which corporations must adhere to unless they are Enron or WorldCom, and apply them to the Federal government last year's deficit was 1.3 trillion USD rather than the 248 billion USD that the government claims. That comes to 11,434 USD per household more than the income tax paid. To make matters worse, especially for those under thirty, the cumulative deficit is actually 59.1 trillion USD or 516,348 USD per household.
Suddenly it doesn't seem so terrible to be old.
Now. Here we go. The US government makes up the accounting rules that it applies to itself as it goes along. It doesn't use what are known as Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP). If you take these rules, which corporations must adhere to unless they are Enron or WorldCom, and apply them to the Federal government last year's deficit was 1.3 trillion USD rather than the 248 billion USD that the government claims. That comes to 11,434 USD per household more than the income tax paid. To make matters worse, especially for those under thirty, the cumulative deficit is actually 59.1 trillion USD or 516,348 USD per household.
Suddenly it doesn't seem so terrible to be old.
No comments:
Post a Comment