"Consolidated Annual Financial Reports" is a phrase that few Americans have heard and fewer still begin to understand. I thought in light of the May Day marches and the past Tax Freedom day we would do well to understand this concept. But first we must engage in a little imagination work.Imagine your own general budget process if you will. Let's say for sake of example you make an even $36,000 a year. This amount would be defined by the I.R.S. as your "income". And for sake of argument, this is the only income coming into your household.
Now, let's pretend you and your spouse were working on creating your monthly budget. At this point, your spouse is highly uniformed regarding your income and has no idea what you make. (Because you don't tell them) Being the shrewd person that you are, you work with them to set up a budget for $1500 a month and then you set up payment for the bills.
After a few months, money starts to get tight and fingers start to get pointed around the dinner table.
"We need more money for our expenses." your spouse argues.
"Well," you say "that means we need to make more money." "Our budget is too high for your needs, we'll have to cut spending money on you."
Now, freeze that situation for a second and you might begin to understand how the Federal, State as well as other institutions have put the tax screws to John Q. Taxpayer for quite a long time. For our astute readers, the omission is obvious. For those of you who require more explanation, such as myself, let me connect the dots. Let's review the facts shall we?
Your income is $36,000 a year or $3000 a month while your budget is $1500 a month.
Think about that for a second.
Your spouse is under the assumed impression that your income is at $1500 a month based off the budget but you being quite crafty have the same budget of $1500 on the side to do with as you please. Quite cunning huh? Well friends, this is what we have been exposed to by the Government as a whole for years.
Every fiscal year for a governing body is fraught with scare tactics about lost educational services, starving homeless and the end of humanity as we know it. Yet the governments are sitting on literally billions of your dollars every year according to their own books. The issue is which books you look at.
Here is just one of thousands of examples -
"The State of Wisconsin at the State-level has approximately $7.44 billion of the taxpayer's money it is not using, i. e. surpluses equal to $1,368 for every man, woman and child in Wisconsin or $5,471 for a family of 4. This does not include all the additional surpluses that exist in the school districts, cities, or counties in Wisconsin." (FY 2003)Beginning to get the picture? Now think real closely...does the Federal government really need an enormous chunk of the American economy to operate? Or is this just a royal shafting? Let's read more -
"Historically, a budget consists of three parts: 1) Funds brought forward (funds not previously spent); 2) Next year's estimated revenues; and 3) Next year's estimated expenditures. But somewhere along the way the funds brought forward category was lost. In accounting, the previous years' revenues are no longer called revenue but have been converted to Cash and Investments. Since they no longer called Revenues governments have forgotten about them to the public. They are there but not considered in the budget process, but should be."The Real Effect
"For example, the State of Wisconsin Special Revenue Funds (Governmental Funds), considered part of the budget, have fund balances of $209 million that probably will not be considered in the next year's budget. The total cash and investments, funds that were not used during the current year, was $513 million (surplus) and should be part of the next year's budget. So if next year there is a "budget deficit" ask about these funds not being considered or used."
Let's look at last year's (FY 2005)"funds" shall we? According to the 2005 Consolidated Annual Financial Reports, the Wisconsin government Transportation fund carried over $325,226,000. That's almost $326 MILLION just sitting in the government coffers and not being productive in the commercial economy of Wisconsin. Imagine for a second if you were told you were getting a refund check this year of almost $10,000 for your family? And this is just sending back the excess funds, not cutting spending.
Our government is not a business and does not need BILLIONS in annual cash reserves. Keep in mind that this is only cash overflow from budget years, this does not include capitol assets such as land, bridges, buildings, etc. In addition, this does not include the Federal government or your local government or education institutions.
How about we work at getting that cash back in the hands of the people that earned it?
Edited on 5/7/2010 for appearance, spelling and labels.
