[P1] self-quotes

[Eric B. Richardson]

At 12:07 PM -0500 1/5/03, Jack Rodgers wrote:
>
>I used the numbers present in government documents to create a chart 
>of the US debt from World War II until the middle of the Clinton 
>Era. The numbers spiked during the Reagan Years and the debt was 
>definitely being lowered and approaching zero during the Clinton 
>years. Remember, the balanced budged and zero deficit?

Balanced budget and zero deficit, have never been a truism. More 
significant would be what the deficit is compared to GDP, as well as 
what is our total debt as compared to GDP.

But we have never been given a true accounting by the government, no 
matter who is in charge. It uses accounting tricks that would put 
corporate CEO's in jail for sure, with no repercussions, and our joke 
of an investigative press by and large doesn't do its job uncovering 
it. Most of them don't have a clue about economics and budgets 
anyway. There are a lot of liabilities our government holds that are 
just not included. Social Security liabilities alone would probably 
quadruple the debt.