http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...039087636.html
Cox and Archer: Why $16 Trillion Only Hints at the True U.S. Debt
Hiding the government's liabilities from the public makes it seem that we can tax our way out of mounting deficits. We can't.
Some highlights:
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For years, the government has gotten by without having to produce the kind of financial statements that are required of most significant for-profit and nonprofit enterprises. The U.S. Treasury "balance sheet" does list liabilities such as Treasury debt issued to the public, federal employee pensions, and post-retirement health benefits. But it does not include the unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Social Security and other outsized and very real obligations.
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The actual liabilities of the federal government—including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees' future retirement benefits—already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP. For the year ending Dec. 31, 2011, the annual accrued expense of Medicare and Social Security was $7 trillion.
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As of the most recent Trustees' report in April, the net present value of the unfunded liability of Medicare was $42.8 trillion. The comparable balance sheet liability for Social Security is $20.5 trillion.
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When combined with funding the general cash deficits, these multitrillion-dollar Treasury operations will dominate the capital markets in the years ahead, particularly given China's de-emphasis of new investment in U.S. Treasurys in favor of increasing foreign direct investment, and Japan's and Europe's own sovereign-debt challenges.
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to collect enough tax revenue just to avoid going deeper into debt would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually. That is the total of the average annual accrued liabilities of just the two largest entitlement programs, plus the annual cash deficit.
I was concerned about Weimar Republic-level deflation before but the size of these numbers is just staggering -- and my criticism is inherently non-partisan since Bush the Younger added to this overwhelming deficit with the Medicare Part D giveaways. Time to dig out some history books and see what strategies preserved capital during that era.