Theft By Deception

Interesting to listen in on the hearings and floor discussion on the administration of government in Iraq, and on the U.S. administration's proposed budget, and those costs. Without CSpan, we'd have to rely on news reports, and I really doubt it would be possible to see the full extent of the malfuntions.

Representative Issa, R-CA, was asking the Inspector General Stuart Bowen about the amount of expense we are sending in to Iraq, and the amount that has been going into overseas accounts because of the corruption of Iraqi officials. The IG had a rough figure of about 2,000 cases being pursued, but no figure for the monetary amount.

Everyone, generally, admits that it's a mess over there and for the most part names the cause as 'poor preparation'. I contend it's a matter of cynically throwing our public funds into a den of thieves without any real concern for the outcome.

The current budget is being introduced by this administration on the pretext that it will pay for the war and end the deficit this White House has incurred by 2012. However, as brought out on the floor yesterday, the Social Security Trust Fund will be tapped into in the amount of billions, passing the debt to Social Security instead of the deficit, or loans from foreign countries, that it now taps. This is another violation of the public trust, and misuse of public funds.

As Senator Kent Conrad said Monday;

And here is what happens, according to all of the projections with respect to debt if the tax cuts are extended, made permanent, without paying for them, without offsetting them: The debt absolutely skyrockets. And they begin to skyrocket right at the worst possible time. This is when the trust funds of Medicare and Social Security go cash negative. So at that very time -- and if you layer in the President’s tax cuts -- what you see is the debt absolutely exploding.

That’s why I say this budget is a combination of deception and debt in a way that’s disconnected from reality.[emphasis added]

Another travesty of accounting is being played out on the public by the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Looked at another way , what the Bush tax cuts give to taxpayers, the AMT grabs back. By 2012, if it isn't changed, the AMT would take back almost one-third of the Bush tax cuts. As the accompanying chart shows, it would take back more than half of the tax cut for people making between $100,000 and $200,000.

In fact, in an irony that only a tax geek could love, the AMT has been transformed from its original purpose, a means of assuring that the wealthiest pay at least some taxes, into a way of underwriting tax cuts for the wealthiest. Because the AMT hits fewer of those with the highest incomes, the rather comfortable end up subsidizing Bush's tax cuts for the super-rich.

Instead of dealing with the AMT, the administration has simply slapped on another one-year fix. It says it wants a permanent solution but in the context of revenue-neutral comprehensive tax reform. This is Washington-speak for "we have to find the money somewhere, but we're not ready to say how yet."

The most disturbing part of this whole scenario is that generations of Americans are being saddled with a debt that is paying for a disaster that was deliberately committed by the cretin in chief and his operatives. It was brought down on the American public by perversion of the truth, by the threat of WMDs - which only twisting the facts could establish. Theft by deception has been committed. It should not be visited on the public to pay for these crimes. Rather, if justice were done, the personal fortunes of the perpetrators of the war crimes should be taken for the payment of the costs they've brought down on this country.

If this country is to be torn down by the crimes of its leaders then it should be compensated by international justice bodies such as the International Criminal Court. This country's economic wellbeing has been destroyed for generations to come, and the U.S. should be compensated by confiscation of the criminals' fortunes that have been built up by their crimes.