Not News

I’ll have to file this under “not news, but should be widely reported anyway”. The NYT has an op-ed about how the budget rules the federal government follows are misleading.

I’ll admit I’ve been having a crappy week on top of a crappy year, so I’m a little less than patient with politely phrased euphemisms at the moment. The accounting practices the federal government follows are primarily designed to obscure from the average voter the actual financial condition of the government. In short, they are a lie in their conception and execution. Yet everyone smiles and nods when the numbers are presented instead of throwing the documents back at the official presenting them and asking where, exactly, the crack was purchased. The only reason anyone is bringing this up right now is because if they can discredit the budget numbers, they can make the current administration look bad. Guess what? If it’s been going on for 40 years, the current administration isn’t to blame.

Part of what makes a democracy work is the citizen oversight of government. It can’t possibly work well when everyone involved, including the government, has their own peculiar reason for lying to the citizenry.