Further evidence of the Bush Abomination's implosion - even Fortune magazine has abandoned Bush's spin on the economy, specifically the spiralling federal budget deficit.
In an article entitled Bush's Fuzzy Math (via CNN money), writer Allen Sloan hands out some preventative Dramamine for the spin that will come from the White House in early October.
Grab a dose below the fold.
Now I'm not going to trumpet this piece as some sort of watershed moment in the financial world. After all, Bush's short term policies of padding the wallets of the investor class, massive deregulation, union-busting, bankruptcy 'reform', and "Greed is Good" trade policies have made many friends among Fortune's readers. But it is worth noting that Sloan is preempting the spin he says will certainly come from the Abomination next month.
By using what Sloan calls "Washington Accepted Accounting Principles", BushCo can claim the deficit has been reduced by $90 billion. He quickly points out that any publicly traded company would be hauled before the SEC "before you could say Sarbanes-Oxley" if they used this accounting method. Sloan goes into detail on the numbers, reminding us that this innovative accounting allows the Treasury to leave out the costs of giving IOU's to the Social Security Trust Fund for $78 billion in excess collections (amt over what is paid to recipients) as well as IOU's for interest payments to the Trust Fund ($108 billion). The Treasury dept takes in the cash, spends it (on things like Escalades for Halliburton employees in Kuwait), and "makes up" the loss with IOU's. Maybe that's what Wonder Boy was talking about when he attacked the Full Faith and Credit of the USA by calling it a bunch of IOU's in a file cabinet (a less-than-sexy, but still impeachable offense, btw). In a similar bit of sleight-of-hand, $97 billion in debt has been moved from the Treasury to "other government accounts".
Hoo-boy, I get nervous when "other" is the official term for where the money went.
So, by the magic of WAAP, the actual Federal Budget Deficit of $441 billion gets reported as a deficit of $158 billion.
Another example of not letting facts get in the way of selling a failed 'ideology'. More tax cuts, Mr. Moneybags?
Sloan also peppers his debunking of this mythical math with barbs like
Don't you wish you could keep books this way at home?
Read the short article. It's worth it. Sloan worries that
the happy news may produce unhappy long-term results by making politicians even less inclined than usual to inflict pain on voters by raising taxes or trimming future benefits to keep entitlements from overwhelming the public fisc.
Like I said, not quite a watershed moment for the Brahmins, (note the helpful suggestion to cut Medicare etc), but the fact that Fortune is willing to get out in front of Bush's next set of carefully planned lies is a helpful sign that, even in the most comfortable of circles, the Emperor has no clothes.