The Real Budget Deficit

Via The Federalist Papers:

According to a study completed by USA Today, the real federal budget deficit for 2012 is more than 5 trillion dollars. The difference is due to an accounting trick that let’s Congress exempt itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government’s books. Under those accounting practices, the government ran red ink last year equal to $42,054 per household — nearly four times the official number reported under unique rules set by Congress. The typical American household would have paid nearly all of its income in taxes last year to balance the budget if the government used standard accounting rules to compute the deficit.

In other words, shit’s fucked. Consider joining me at the Seasteading conference–a new frontier is sorely needed.

Socio-Political