"What about government fraud?"
Bush's speech on corporate fraud spurs Libertarians to ask: What about government fraud?
WASHINGTON, DC -- President Bush's speech in Washington, DC, today on "corrupt corporate accounting" overlooked a far more serious problem, Libertarians say: corrupt government accounting.
"When it comes to cooking the books, Uncle Sam is a master chef," said Libertarian Party Communications Director George Getz. "That's what makes the government's criticism of Wall Street's ethics so hard to swallow."
At a Washington, DC, conference on corporate fraud on Thursday, Bush urged federal prosecutors to crack down on "corruption and crime" and said: "No boardroom in America is above or beyond the law." Bush headlined the conference to show progress toward curbing the financial abuses that spurred Congress to pass an anti-fraud bill earlier this
year.
But Bush and other politicians have absolutely no credibility when it comes to financial ethics, Libertarians point out.
"Let's face it: Being called dishonest by politicians is like being called ugly by a frog," Getz said. "Take the issue of hidden debt, for example.
"The federal government claims its debt is about $6 trillion, when in fact it is six times as large. According to budget expert Andrew Rettenmaier at the National Center for Policy Analysis, the actual debt includes $12.9 trillion in federal obligations to people who are owed Social Security and Medicare benefits, and $16.9 trillion for Medicare benefits.
"Thus the actual federal debt is approximately $36 trillion,
calculates Rettenmaier, a figure that amounts to $120,000 for every man, woman, and child in America.
"How dare Mr. Bush chastise business executives when the organization that he runs – the federal government -- has a hidden debt that is 7,500 times as large as Enron's?"
And hidden debt is just the most obvious example of government accounting fraud, the party says. The government also cooks the books with gimmicks like:
* Forward funding: "To get around budget caps, lawmakers spend money in one fiscal year but count it against the next year's total," Getz said. "Then when the next fiscal year rolls around, they shift the money back to the previous year's books, so it doesn't count against that year's books, either.
"Why is this practice called forward funding when politicians do it, but financial fraud when CEOs do it?"
* Phony emergency spending: "Last year Congress classified $4.5 billion spent on the Census as emergency spending so it didn't have to include it in the budget, even though we've been doing a Census since 1790," he said.
"The real budget emergency is the threat posed by the spending addicts in Washington, DC."
* A 13-month fiscal year: "Earlier this year, House Republicans had the audacity to float a plan to declare that a fiscal year has 13 months so they could sandwich more money into a spending bill," he said.
"Is there a CEO in the world who believes that he can create a fairy tale fiscal year with the wave of a magic wand in order to make your money disappear?"
* Shifting paydays and lying about revenue: "Congress claims it 'saved' $2.3 billion last year by shifting a military payday from the last day of 2000 to the first day of 2001," Getz said. "Then it created a mythical $23 billion in government 'income' by moving a corporate tax deadline one day forward.
"Aren't these the kinds of dishonest accounting practices that were condemned by the politicians who wrote the anti-fraud bill?
"The next time Mr. Bush convenes a financial fraud conference, he should be sure to invite all the shady operators on Capitol Hill." |
