dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

=National Debt Is $122 Trillion, Not $23 Trillion, Says Non-profit Group=

When Epoch Times’ Mark Tapscott checked the U.S. Treasury’s “Debt to the Penny” website on Monday, he reported that the U.S. national debt just ticked over to $23.3 trillion. That’s four times what it was 20 years ago.

Tapscott then checked in with the Chicago-based nonprofit advocacy group Truth in Accounting (TIA) to get a more accurate reading. Said Bill Bergman, the group’s director of research, the Treasury misses the real national debt by $100 trillion, explaining that “the U.S. Treasury does not include the unfunded obligations for Social Security and Medicare.”

That’s because those obligations can only be counted when they become liabilities. And because Congress can change the law at any time, said Bergman, the Treasury gets to hide the real numbers. Said Bergman, “The reasoning has been that the government controls the law, and can change it any time.”

An actuary from Social Security spelled out the deception at a public hearing in 2007: “[It is] the government’s right and ability to alter potential future benefits. Until benefits become due and payable, there is no binding commitment over which a worker has control, and so no liability can be recognized.”

Even that $122 trillion number is suspect, according to Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff. In an interview with Joseph Lawler, editor of RealClearPolicy, Kotlikoff measured the “fiscal gap” — a tool used for generational accounting purposes — to conclude that the real national debt is closer to $222 trillion. Said Kotlikoff, “That’s what we economists call the fiscal gap.… What you have to do is look at the present value of all the [government’s promises from] now through the end of time … all projected expenditures including servicing the national debt. And [then] you subtract all the projected taxes. The present value of the difference is $222 trillion.”