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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: Road Walker who wrote (329049)3/15/2007 3:45:02 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 1575761
 
re: To see how its important note that the unified budget would make things look worse than the "separate budget" when the baby boomers retire in large numbers.

Exactly why it's deceptive.

When the baby boomers retire the fiscal situation will become worse, but the separate budget (the one you are arguing for) would hide this deterioration. The separate budget can be just as deceptive as the unified budget.

Really neither is inherently deceptive. If you understand what the figures mean they accurately convey information, but both are subject to use in political spin.

Seems to me you would normally support transparency in government revenue/spending? Is this just a political thing with you?

The information is widely available so in that sense its transparent.

It isn't really a transparency issue. In fact just focusing on either number makes things less transparent, as both reflect important concerns and if people don't have the information that they need from both numbers they won't understand what is happening.

Both pieces of information are useful. The unified budget shows the actual spending and revenue of the federal government. SS spending is government spending despite its separate tax.

OTOH there is a future obligation being incurred each year that isn't covered by the unified budget balance. It isn't perfectly covered by the separate balance either, but I suppose most people would tune out if you tried to explain the details of the estimated future liability, and if you have to just give a number, the separate budget is closer to covering that future obligation than the unified budget.
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