A friend of mine is an accountant. He's also Republican. He knows how to lie with numbers. He has the full faith and credit of the
U.S. Treasury Department behind him.
To counter another fact-based bombardment from yours truly, he sent me the following data from the link above. The debt is the gross federal debt, in millions, and he added the yearly % increase to prove to me that everthing is great (as it is in Iraq, of course):
Year Debt % increase
2005 $6,118,364 1.41
2004 $6,033,583 1.46
2003 $5,946,792 1.57
2002 $5,854,990 1.49
2001 $5,768,957 1.45
2000 $5,686,338 1.43
Like you, I immediately recognized that almost $2 trillion is missing. TWO TRILLION DOLLARS!? The % increases were obviously unbelievable. I follow the link above, and lo and behold...
2005 (Estimate) $6,118,364 million
2004 (Estimate) $6,033,583 million
2003 (Estimate) $5,946,792 million
2002 (Estimate) $5,854,990 million
2001 (Estimate) $5,768,957 million
2000 (Estimate) $5,686,338 million
1999 $5,606,087 million
1998 $5,478,711 million
1997 $5,369,694 million
1996 $5,181,921 million
1995 $4,921,005 million
What a coincidence! For every year Bush has been in office, the debt is estimated. Surely an oversight. They must have estimated those numbers in 2000 and never touched them again, because I can't imagine how they would fail, year after year, to notice that they are adding yet another estimate.
Wait a minute. The US Treasury Department's own web site has incorrect numbers about the debt, even though the real numbers are available from the Treasury Department's own Bureau of the Public Debt? Here's another coincidence: on the page linked above, you'll find:
The Department of the Treasury, though our Bureau of the Public Debt, is responsible for administering the National (or Public) Debt.
Yeah, it's in bold on their site. The funny thing is that it isn't linked anywhere on that page, though other sites are.
WELL, I'M HERE TO HELP THE US TREASURY INFORM ITS CITIZENS WITH A PROMINENT LINK TO THE WEB PAGE WHERE THE US TREASURY'S VERY OWN BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT SHOWS THE DEBT TO THE PENNY. EVERY DAY.
Here's the real data:
date debt % increase
6/23/2005 $7,773,570,880,558.82 5.35
9/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.32 8.78
9/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62 8.91
9/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16 7.25
9/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06 2.35
9/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86 0.32
9/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43 2.35
9/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62 2.09
9/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34 3.60
9/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73 5.04
9/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39 5.99
Well, what do you know? After declining under Bill Clinton to almost zero, the % increase skyrockets under George Bush (don't blame "the war"; he gave the rich an immense tax break, then told us it was mostly for the poor & middle class). Also note that the data for this year is for 9 months only, so we're headed for 7 or 8% again, and of course that's for an ever-growing debt.
Please correct me or join me in
contacting OUR US Treasure Department and asking them to revise their five-year old figures.
A last coincidence: no response from my Republican accountant friend. I'm sure he's just a tad embarrassed.