Our government gives itself permission to have three sets of books for their budget. You can learn about how the government selectivly reports economic data
here. I assure you - you'll be blown away! You can also learn about it in
Ron Paul's book,
Glenn Beck's book, and in
this interview with the former head accountant of the United States. We must have
honest reporting of our economic data so that we can make smart decisions regarding the long-term health of our economy.
Oh, the biggest instance of this is Clinton's alleged "surplus".
Here is some interesting info on this scam. Basically, the government of the time managed to pay off a lot of the external debt... by borrowing money from itself (intergovernmental holdings). In other words, the surplus of Social Security that existed before the baby boomers started retiring was used to pay the public debt (now, this is something that happens automatically, neither Clinton nor the Legislative branch did). Then they claimed THEY balanced the budget, and started congratulating each other. The worst part is, that was YOUR retirement money right there. Unless you don't expect to see any of it, we haven't paid off anything.