Mover Mike

Drudge has this story headlined today,

The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will decide whether the District of Columbia can ban handguns, a case that could produce the most in-depth examination of the constitutional right to "keep and bear arms" in nearly 70 years.

You do remember what Mayor Bobby Bright of Montgomery, Alabama said, don't you? Two years ago Mayor Bright speaking at a Kiwanis Club said,

"I've said it one time. Get a gun and teach our folks how to use them and shoot 'em."

Bright went on to say,"There's going to be people out there who write me and say, 'God, Mayor, why are you doing this?' Listen to what I'm saying. Get your gun, learn how to shoot it, learn how to use it and use it."

Maybe we all need to praqctice what Mayor Bright recommends what with the an understaffed police force, clogged courts, and budget priorities seemingly pointed at $500 Million fiber optic cable systems.

ban handguns Mayor Bobby Brigh Mover Mike

My B. Bradford postings reminded me of this information:

NATIONAL DEBT

Here is how the National Debt has grown over the Last 3 Decades:

Carter - 4 Years
Started - 01/21/1977 - $653,544,000,000.00
Ended - 01/19/1981 - $930,209,523,658.00

Total Debt under Carter - $276,665,523,658.00 (276 Billion)

Reagan - 8 Years
Started - 01/20/1981 - $930,210,000,000.00
Ended - 01/19/1989 - $2,602,337,712,041.16

Total Debt under Reagan - $1,672,127,712,041.00 (1.6 Trillion)

Bush, Sr. - 4 Years
Started - 01/20/1989 - $2,602,857,255,961.25
Ended - 01/19/1993 - $4,187,806,610,369.16

Total Debt under Bush, Sr. - $1,584,949,354,408.00 (1.5 Trillion)

Clinton - 8 Years
Started - 01/20/1993 - $4,188,092,107,183.60
Ended - 01/19/2001 - $5,727,776,738,304.64

Total Debt under Clinton - $1,539,684,631,121.00 (1.5 Trillion)

Bush. Jr. - 5 Years
Started - 01/20/2001 - $5,728,195,796,181.57
Ended - 01/24/2006 - $8,185,315,076,347.87

Total Debt under Bush, Jr. - $2,457,119,280,166.00 (2.4 Trillion) & Growing

I am afraid this will all end badly!

Hat Tip to Scribe

Budget Surplus national debt Mover Mike

B. Bradford has replied to my post:

Thank you for your response.

At the very least, use inflation adjusted dollars or you are comparing 2000 dollars to 1999 dollars to 1998 dollars, which is completely invalid. Using a constant measure is critical in producing a valid chart.

You can see charts of the surplus here

I find your explanation, that the Republicans want to "mislead" us into thinking that there was a surplus under the Democrats, highly unlikely.

B. Bradford, I am not going to adjust the deficit for inflation. I don't want you to feel good about the deficit. Quoting from an earlier Mover Mike:

"The gimmicked accounting standards, as established during the Johnson era, and as used today for official, unified budget reporting, show a 2003 deficit of $374.3 billion. Using GAAP reporting (without Social Security reporting), the official GAAP deficit for 2003 expands to $665.0 billion. Including accounting for Social Security and related areas, the 2003 deficit balloons to $3,702 billion, or $3.7 trillion. The accounting reflects no adjustment for the new, more expensive Medicare program." (in all cases I've added emphasis)

2004 Results

Results for the official 2004 deficit will be published in the next several months, and the numbers are projected by the Bush administration to be significantly worse than in 2003, $445 billion versus $374 billion, with the actual deficit likely to near $4.3 trillion (my estimate). The 2004 GAAP financial statements on the government will not be published until March/April

-----------------------------GAAP-Based--------GAAP-Based

Fiscal--------"Official"----Deficit Without---Deficit With

-Year-----------Deficit------Soc. Sec., Etc.--Soc. Sec., Etc.

------------------------------------------------------------

2004 est.---$445 Billion-----$800 Billion-----$4.3 Trillion

2003--------$374 Billion-----$665 Billion-----$3.7 Trillion

2002--------$158 Billion-----$365 Billion-----$1.5 Trillion

The politicians would like you to adjust the deficit for inflation, that would make it look smaller. But they are already playing games with the deficit to make it look smaller. Above are numbers just for 2002, 2003 and 2004, showing what the real deficit is.

We have a neat scam going. We go into debt and debase the dollar through inflation and make the value of the dollars we pay back worth less. Since 1971 when the US went off the Gold Standard the value of the dollar has been debased to the tune of 95%.

Why do the Republicans go along with the fiction of a surplus in the Clinton years? Because they want to use the same tricks Clinton and Bush I, and Carter and Reagan and Nixon used. They want to continmue spending money, giving the voters essentially bread and circuses for their vote, without raising taxes.

IT'S A TRAVESTY!

B Bradford Budget Surplus Clinton Administration national debt Mover Mike

"Nearly four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson's political sensitivities led him and the Congress to slough off some of the costs of an escalating Vietnam War through the use of accounting gimmicks. To mask the rapid growth in the federal government's budget deficit, revenues from the surplus being generated by Social Security taxes were added into the general cash fund, without making any accounting allowance for the accompanying and increasing Social Security liabilities. This accounting-gimmicked reporting was dubbed "unified" budget accounting.

The government's accounting then, as it is now, was on a cash basis, reflecting cash revenues versus cash expenditures. There were no accruals made for monies owed by or due to the government at some time in the future.

The bogus accounting understated the actual deficit for decades and even allowed for claims of budget surpluses in the years 1998 to 2001. While there were extensive self-congratulatory comments between the President, Congress and the Fed Chairman, at the time, all involved knew there never were any actual budget surpluses. There hasn't been an actual balanced budget, let alone a surplus, since before Johnson and his cronies cooked the bookkeeping."

"In the mid-1970s, the then "Big Ten" accounting firms proposed setting up for the federal government an accrual accounting and reporting system similar to that used in the business community. Purchases of capital equipment, weapons and buildings would be booked as assets and depreciated, taxes receivable and accounts payable would better reflect near term cash needs. Accrued liabilities, such as Social Security payments due in the future, would reflect longer-term cash-flow needs.

As the project progressed, GAAP accounting was applied to the government's operations and prototype annual statements were published beginning in 1974. The appropriate accounting for Social Security liabilities, however, was discarded during the Reagan administration as being politically untenable.

Under the eventual mandate of Congress, the accounting project culminated in the U.S. Treasury publishing its first formal Financial Report of the United States Government for fiscal year 2000, consistent with GAAP, except for Social Security and similar accounts such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Railroad Retirement Fund.

To the credit of the Bush administration, later reports, published in April 2003 and April 2004 for fiscal years 2002 and 2003, indicated for the first time since the 1980s what the Social Security and related numbers would look like if they were included in the accounting, just as corporations need to account for pension and retiree health benefit liabilities."

"The gimmicked accounting standards, as established during the Johnson era, and as used today for official, unified budget reporting, show a 2003 deficit of $374.3 billion. Using GAAP reporting (without Social Security reporting), the official GAAP deficit for 2003 expands to $665.0 billion. Including accounting for Social Security and related areas, the 2003 deficit balloons to $3,702 billion, or $3.7 trillion. The accounting reflects no adjustment for the new, more expensive Medicare program." (in all cases I've added emphasis)

2004 Results

Results for the official 2004 deficit will be published in the next several months, and the numbers are projected by the Bush administration to be significantly worse than in 2003, $445 billion versus $374 billion, with the actual deficit likely to near $4.3 trillion (my estimate). The 2004 GAAP financial statements on the government will not be published until March/April

-----------------------------GAAP-Based--------GAAP-Based

Fiscal--------"Official"----Deficit Without---Deficit With

-Year-----------Deficit------Soc. Sec., Etc.--Soc. Sec., Etc.

------------------------------------------------------------

2004 est.---$445 Billion-----$800 Billion-----$4.3 Trillion

2003--------$374 Billion-----$665 Billion-----$3.7 Trillion

2002--------$158 Billion-----$365 Billion-----$1.5 Trillion

Update:

The alleged budget surplus during the Clinton Administration is really starting to bug me. In The Oregonian of Wednesday September 8, 2005 on page A5 is a chart of Federal Budget deficits from 1982 to a projected 2004. It shows that starting in about 1997 to 2000 that the US ran a surplus of up to $236.4 Billion dollars, and both Democrats and Republicans agree with this number because its source is the Congressional Budget Office. What bugs me? Below is a chart of the Public Debt (http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm)

Prior Fiscal
Years
09/03/2004 $7,366,776,167,570.79
09/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06
09/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00

It shows more debt every year. Yes, there is a slowing of the increase from 1999 to 2000, but we still owed more money each year. The debt doubled from $3.665 Trillion in 1991 to $7.366 Trillion in 2004; 13 years! Using the rule of 72, that means that debt has been compounding at a rate of at least 5.5% per year.

In order to show a surplus our government borrows from Social Security to make up the difference. Suppose you have a child of 16. The grandparents gave her $50,000 for college, which she keeps in the bank. In addition she/he gets a job at Nordstroms selling shoes and manages to save $500 a month while going to school. Now you as a parent make $4,000 per month and spend $5,000. You can go into debt by a $1,000 per month or you can borrow from your childs bank. If you take out $1,500 per month, you could say you are running a surplus of $500 per month. But in the bank account are your IOU's mounting at $1,500 a month. Now, it goes without saying, the average family would not run their finances this way. Not only would it piss off the grandparents, but I can see a lot of sleepless nights for the parents.

We are being lied to about the deficits and the amount of debt by both sides and we should demand openness.
For a look at the amount we owe go to: http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/.
Hit the refresh button as often and as fast as you like and watch it grow!!

Update: