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What’s the real federal deficit?

Posted on June 6th, 2008 at 10:44 by John Sinteur in category: News -- Write a comment

[Quote:]

The federal government keeps two sets of books.

The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.

The set the government doesn’t talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government’s accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

If you tried to do something like that, you’d end up in jail real fast!

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