{"id":13238,"date":"2013-01-10T11:48:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-10T16:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=13238"},"modified":"2013-01-10T22:47:49","modified_gmt":"2013-01-11T03:47:49","slug":"whats-at-stake-a-cpas-insights-into-the-federal-governments-finances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2013\/01\/10\/whats-at-stake-a-cpas-insights-into-the-federal-governments-finances\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s at Stake? A CPA&#8217;s Insights into the Federal Government&#8217;s Finances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The American Institute of CPAs has the article and video <strong><a title=\"AICPA article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aicpa.org\/advocacy\/pages\/cpasinsight.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">What&#8217;s at Stake? A CPA&#8217;s Insights into the Federal Government&#8217;s Finances<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<table>\n<thead><\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div style=\"display: none;\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/admin.brightcove.com\/js\/BrightcoveExperiences.js\" language=\"JavaScript\"><\/script><br \/>\n <object id=\"myExperience1614187568001\" width=\"300\" height=\"256\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"seamlessTabbing\" value=\"false\" \/><param name=\"swliveconnect\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"window\" \/><param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/c.brightcove.com\/services\/viewer\/federated_f9?&amp;width=300&amp;height=256&amp;flashID=myExperience1614187568001&amp;bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&amp;playerID=1146616647001&amp;playerKey=AQ~~%2CAAAAAFiQae0~%2COKolxKKriBWaTRwoHS3sE1c4pMrRcOOO&amp;isVid=true&amp;isUI=true&amp;dynamicStreaming=true&amp;%40videoPlayer=1614187568001&amp;autoStart=&amp;debuggerID=&amp;startTime=1357835110322\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"seamlesstabbing\" value=\"false\" \/><embed id=\"myExperience1614187568001\" width=\"300\" height=\"256\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/c.brightcove.com\/services\/viewer\/federated_f9?&amp;width=300&amp;height=256&amp;flashID=myExperience1614187568001&amp;bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&amp;playerID=1146616647001&amp;playerKey=AQ~~%2CAAAAAFiQae0~%2COKolxKKriBWaTRwoHS3sE1c4pMrRcOOO&amp;isVid=true&amp;isUI=true&amp;dynamicStreaming=true&amp;%40videoPlayer=1614187568001&amp;autoStart=&amp;debuggerID=&amp;startTime=1357835110322\" allowScriptAccess=\"always\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" seamlessTabbing=\"false\" swliveconnect=\"true\" wmode=\"window\" quality=\"high\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" seamlesstabbing=\"false\" \/><\/object><!--\nThis script tag will cause the Brightcove Players defined above it to be created as soon\nas the line is read by the browser. If you wish to have the player instantiated only after\nthe rest of the HTML is processed and the page load is complete, remove the line.\n--><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ < ![CDATA[\n\/\/ < ![CDATA[\n\/\/ < ![CDATA[\n\/\/ < ![CDATA[\n\/\/ < ![CDATA[\nbrightcove.createExperiences();\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">What\u2019s at Stake? A CPA\u2019s Insights into the Federal Government\u2019s Finances<\/span><\/strong>The following resources are referenced in the What\u2019s at Stake video and linked here for easy access:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fms.treas.gov\/fr\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Fiscal Year 2011 Financial Report of the United States Government<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/omb\/budget\/Overview\" target=\"_blank\">Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2013<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fms.treas.gov\/frsummary\/frsummary2011.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">A Citizen\u2019s Guide to the 2011 Financial Report of the U.S. Government<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<pre><\/pre>\n<p>With all due respect to my daughter the accountant and my cousin the CPA, it is too bad that the AICPA does not realize the limits of its expertise.<\/p>\n<p>First the &#8220;revenue&#8221; that the Federal Government takes in as taxes bears little relation to the &#8220;revenue&#8221; that a corporation takes in. (The Federal Government does not actually need any revenue from taxes to run the government. Our Federal Government creates the money that it uses to pay for its expenditures. Taking in taxes is just a policy decision that the government has made.)<\/p>\n<p>Second, comparing future obligations that will be paid out over an infinite future is not comparable to obligations that have a fixed payment schedule or to yearly income or revenue. To put it mildly, it is an oversimplification to compare $51 trillion of obligations, such as Social Security, to the current net worth (not assets) of the citizens of the country. Perhaps some people would be shocked to actually count up how much money they will spend over their lifetimes to the amount of money they make in their best year.<\/p>\n<p>Thirdly, to say that the Federal Government assets are only $2 trillion is beyond asinine.<\/p>\n<p>Other than that I don&#8217;t have too many more complaints about this video.<\/p>\n<p>This is not to say that sound accounting principles should not be applied when appropriate.\u00a0 Of course they should.\u00a0 In my uneducated view of accounting, I think that some accountants forget that accounting rules were invented to help run enterprises well.\u00a0 If the accounting rules make it difficult to run an enterprise well, then you have to think about what is wrong with applying the particular rule to the particular situation.\u00a0 Perhaps the accounting rule will make you realize something that you are not doing well in running the enterprise.\u00a0 On the other hand, it is possible that the accounting rule is not applicable to the current situation or is missing some essential element of the current situation.<\/p>\n<p>Accounting rules are changed from time to time, when the arbiters of accounting such as the Federal Accounting Standards Board (FASB) deems it important to adapt the rules to changing circumstances or to different enterprises. In other words, there is nothing sacred about accounting rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The American Institute of CPAs has the article and video What&#8217;s at Stake? A CPA&#8217;s Insights into the Federal Government&#8217;s Finances. What\u2019s at Stake? A CPA\u2019s Insights into the Federal Government\u2019s FinancesThe following resources are referenced in the What\u2019s at Stake video and linked here for easy access: Fiscal Year 2011 Financial Report of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-stevegsposts","czr-hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13238"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13247,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13238\/revisions\/13247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}