Friday, March 23, 2007
Where's the Money?
My significant other cornered me in bed this morning with the question, "How come there was a budget surplus under Clinton and now there's no money left?"
"The short answer," I said, "is looting."
To which she replied, "I think Clinton balanced the budget with the Indian Trust Funds stolen by the Department of Interior."
"Not that simple," I countered. "Interior distributes funds from appropriations and royalties; Mineral Leasing collects the oil, coal, and gas revenues. If Mineral Leasing fails to detect under-reporting by energy companies, fails to collect royalties owed the federal treasury and Indian beneficiaries, or colludes in fraud perpetrated by said companies, then Interior has a hard time deciphering the debt."
"However," I went on, "if Interior is in on the deal, and given the propensity to appoint energy company personnel to head Interior that's not unlikely, then it's not an understatement to say the stolen Indian money was used to finance the Republican Party as laundered through oil companies operating on Indian and federal lands."
"I say they're all crooks, Democrats and Republicans," she avowed.
"Perhaps," I answered, "but that doesn't explain why we went from a huge surplus to a huge deficit. That took some doing, we're talking about a lot of money--enough to provide free health care, higher education, and public transit to every American. War profiteering ate up some of that, but the looting hardly stopped there."
"What you really have to look at," I went on, " is the level of criminality tolerated by or engaged in by one administration versus another to get a grasp of how the enormous revenue generated from payroll deductions comprises a surplus or deficit in relation to Congressional budgets. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is probably the only reliable information coming out of Washington at any given time. I'd start there."
"But didn't Clinton allow Interior to cheat the Indians, too?" she inquired.
"Every president allowed the Indians to be cheated," I remarked. "But equivocation only obscures the answer to your original question. Clinton was no saint, but he did reverse some of the tax giveaways to the wealthy under Reagan. Then Bush Junior gave it back. It's a matter of proportion; Clinton knew better than to kill the goose, Bush doesn't care."
"The short answer," I said, "is looting."
To which she replied, "I think Clinton balanced the budget with the Indian Trust Funds stolen by the Department of Interior."
"Not that simple," I countered. "Interior distributes funds from appropriations and royalties; Mineral Leasing collects the oil, coal, and gas revenues. If Mineral Leasing fails to detect under-reporting by energy companies, fails to collect royalties owed the federal treasury and Indian beneficiaries, or colludes in fraud perpetrated by said companies, then Interior has a hard time deciphering the debt."
"However," I went on, "if Interior is in on the deal, and given the propensity to appoint energy company personnel to head Interior that's not unlikely, then it's not an understatement to say the stolen Indian money was used to finance the Republican Party as laundered through oil companies operating on Indian and federal lands."
"I say they're all crooks, Democrats and Republicans," she avowed.
"Perhaps," I answered, "but that doesn't explain why we went from a huge surplus to a huge deficit. That took some doing, we're talking about a lot of money--enough to provide free health care, higher education, and public transit to every American. War profiteering ate up some of that, but the looting hardly stopped there."
"What you really have to look at," I went on, " is the level of criminality tolerated by or engaged in by one administration versus another to get a grasp of how the enormous revenue generated from payroll deductions comprises a surplus or deficit in relation to Congressional budgets. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is probably the only reliable information coming out of Washington at any given time. I'd start there."
"But didn't Clinton allow Interior to cheat the Indians, too?" she inquired.
"Every president allowed the Indians to be cheated," I remarked. "But equivocation only obscures the answer to your original question. Clinton was no saint, but he did reverse some of the tax giveaways to the wealthy under Reagan. Then Bush Junior gave it back. It's a matter of proportion; Clinton knew better than to kill the goose, Bush doesn't care."
