BCT Editorial – 10/15/06

This page was last updated on October 15, 2006.

No joke; Editorial; Beaver County Times; October 15, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Here’s another example of lies, damn lies and statistics when it come to the federal budget.”

[RWC] Make no mistake. The purpose of this editorial is to downplay the news that the federal deficit is shrinking and shrinking faster than predicted. Find just about any piece of good news that may also be good news for Republicans, and you’ll also find an editorial telling us why the good news is really bad.

Though for the wrong reasons, the editorial is right to rail at how Socialist Security and Medicare tax receipts are accounted for when it comes to the federal budget. As you will read, however, the editorial never tells us how we got here. The reason will come as no surprise.

“The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the federal deficit for the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30 was not the official $260 billion that many Washington types were puffed up about. Another $177 billion in debt needed to be added to the bottom line.

“That’s because ‘Washington’s funny math excluded the Social Security trust fund, which is running a $177 billion surplus this year,’ the paper reported. ‘Washington spends it, but doesn’t count it as spending. It’s officially listed as ‘off-budget’ borrowing.’”

[RWC] By law, Socialist Security tax receipts in excess of benefit payments must be used to purchase federal debt (bonds). It’s been that way since FDR and his Democrat-controlled Congress inflicted Socialist Security on us in the 1930s. Therefore, even in those rare years when we have a balanced budget, we still have to take on debt when SS tax receipts exceed benefits paid.

Does anyone care to guess why the editorial failed to mention this little tidbit?

“So it really doesn’t matter if the official deficit of $260 billion was $58 billion lower than last year’s and about $77 billion lower than projections at the beginning of the fiscal year. The real deficit was $437 billion.”

[RWC] So-called “unified budget reporting” dates back to the Lyndon Johnson administration. Though some Democrats like to dump this on Richard Nixon, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 covered a lot more than just a unified budget provision and merely codified what the Johnson administration began. Further, a Democrat-controlled Congress (56% in both houses) passed the bill.

Again, does anyone care to guess why the editorial failed to mention this little tidbit?

“When it comes to American children reaching proficiency in math by 2014, as President Bush has called for under his No Child Left Behind Act, it’s obvious that members of the legislative and executive branches are falling far short of making adequate yearly progress, and the only way for them to hide that from the public is to cheat. By cooking the books, they hid more than one-third of their deficit spending last year.”

[RWC] By failing to mention the history of Socialist Security and Medicare tax accounting, the author feels free to imply the rules are something new intended to cover up the deficit.

“Unfortunately, budgetary proficiency by 2014 will be too late for our children and grandchildren. Washington’s funny way of doing math is going to bury them in debt - and that’s no laughing matter.”

[RWC] If this were not intended to be a purely political attack piece, the editorial would have noted the history and acknowledged the role Democrats had in making this mess. The editorial could then have asked why Republicans didn’t change these accounting practices when they became the majority in Congress in 1994 and got a Republican president in 2000.