Your Tax Dollars Went… Where?

| June 28, 2020

This is going to be rather detailed, so pop some popcorn, fetch a cold one, and settle in for an informative (I hope) bit of your time.

Greg Hunter of USA Watchdog interviews Mark Skidmore of the University of Michigan regarding missing money and why we are carrying a debt load of $90 trillion.

I spent some time this AM watching an interview with Mark Skidmore, an accountancy analyst with a PhD in finance and accountancy in Michigan, who is trying find a reason that the Treasury is carrying a $90 trillion debt load, when it should be about $16 trillion to $21 trillion**.  There is no reason that Skidmore can find for the Treasury to hold that kind of debt load, so what is that excess covering?

**The debt load is actually $21 trillion, as stated in the video interview, and is supported by Treasury bonds and securities of $16+ trillion, with interest applied to the loan balance over a period of 30 years. The bonds are reissued (churning) regularly, which resolves the debt load on completion. This is how it works with car loans and mortgages: the cost of the car or house is less than you borrow, while the interest included with your monthly payment resolves the actual cash value of the purchase in addition to the accrued interest.

Current assets in the US Treasury as of 17 June 2020 were $7,094,690 millions of U.S. Dollars. That’s rounded off at $7.1 trillions. In order to meet the demand for more cash from the House of Reps, to be distributed as stimulus checks, the Treasury would have to mint two platinum coins worth $1 trillion each, and deposit them at the Federal Reserve. https://fortune.com/2020/03/25/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-how-will-us-pay-trillion-dollar-coin/

The digger I deep, the more better and better it becomes.

Mr. Skidmore did an analysis in 2017 which showed discrepancies similar to those he found more recently, which he discusses in the interview.

You can download the print report from 2019, in which he shows that “causes” of discrepancies were redacted for no obvious reason. The document is not classified, therefore, unless someone is trying to hide something that is indicative of fraud, there is no reason for that. The cash amount is there, but the explanations are cut off. Now you have to ask why is that so, and why are there so many of them? And that’s just his review of the Army’s funding.  What are they hiding? What else is being blocked from the public eye?

This is appalling. What is the Army hiding by cutting off those details? The obvious question is how much fraud and waste is being hidden overall in the government, and who is responsible for it?

Skidmore’s report makes it clear that the report he received from Treasury, in which missing data explanations were cut off, is unacceptable. This reeks of government corruption and fraud at high levels.  https://missingmoney.solari.com/missing-money-update-may-2020/

The video interview is about 40 minutes long and is worth the time it takes to view it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z44Bg7kE9c4&feature=youtu.be

Here’s the real issue: As stated above, Treasury is backed up by the precious metals held by the Federal Reserve to support the US’s financial system. The current actual amount held by the Fed is $7.1 trillions in gold. In order to boost that to over $9++ trillions to support the economy through a severe recession, the Fed may have to mint two platinum coins valued at $2.0 trillion. Otherwise, the Treasury is essentially issuing Monopoly money through BP&E. This is something that people in Congress don’t seem to grasp.

This should be interesting because Skidmore addresses the military in particular as a large portion of the US budget that goes into government programs. Since the Army isn’t coming clean, those discrepancies very likely started a while ago, before Trump was ever even a bright idea in someone’s head. I’m guessing it may have even started back in the 1960s with LBJ’s announcement of the welfare program. I do enjoy blaming a lot of today’s troubles on that self-aggrandizing bloviating blowhard. Remember when he got hisself a Silver Star during WWII?

It is very, very interesting on its own merits, but more so because of the recession we are in, which may continue into 2023 if financial analysts are even remotely accurate. Their original forecast was made in 2018, stating that a recession would occur in 2020 and continue into at least 2022, and possibly 2023, and look where we are now. They did not state the cause, only the event.

It is legitimate to ask ‘WTF is going on here?’, especially when Mr. Skidmore indicates that he cannot find a reasonable answer for the heinous debt load of $90 trillion. As he indicates in the interview, the accountancy that should cover it is missing. His frustration is quite evident. Why is there such a vast difference between the actual numbers ($21 trillions) and this debt load of $90 trillions?  Where is this money being hidden and who is hiding it? How in the blue-eyed blinking world does any country accumulate that kind of debt load without anyone knowing about it until someone blows the whistle on it? You can’t even account for it by using the lame “military overspending” phrase.

The interviewer does ask some pertinent questions, e.g., was the BLM disturbance meant as a distraction? – that sort of thing. I think it’s time we all started asking some pertinent questions, ourselves. It could explain why the House passed the HEROES Act bill, which ups the debt load substantially, but which the Senate objects to supporting. Perhaps the House expected the Senate to just fall in line behind them?

At this point, I’d be happy to put some spendthrifts in Congress through an Inquisition about it. Where the hell is this money and how was it spent? Seriously, where in the blue-eyed world did $90 trillion dollars go when the US government has never, ever had any budget that came to anything remotely near that amount?

I think it’s high time we all started asking what in the blue-eyed trout fishing world IS going on here? $90 trillions in a debt load with no explanation for it?

It is not just bad accounting, but it does indicate that something is very, very wrong.  Always, always, always follow the money.

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Economy

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Comm Center Rat

To paraphrase Everett Dirksen: [Think these are just] drops in the bucket?…A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

Bill R.

The $90+ trillion they speak of is unfunded liabilities such as the various retirement programs out there. It is legit.

Ret_25X

No, it isn’t funded by “bonds” held by anyone. Every penny of SS tax collected since 1935 has been spent…several times over.

What the SS Admin has are “IOU” statements from congress. There is no legal document that can be used to force congress to repay these “IOUs”.

In addition, as more people work the hidden economy, SS and FICA collections fall behind current obligations as well as future obligations.

The SS unfunded obligation is somewhere around $120 TRILLION according to conservative estimates and $200 TRILLION according to others.

The bottom line is that SS is bankrupt. It has been since at least 1997 and is keeping current payments using current receipts.

No money is being “invested”, “set aside”, “saved”, or earmarked.

SS is NOT a retirement fund. It is NOT a savings account. It is a TAX given to congress in the general account and spent accordingly. By 2026 the SS tax receipts will no longer cover SS payments.

The next cohort of recipients will get reduced payments and the millenial and Z cohorts will likely get nothing.

As Moltke might say, such are the rewards of bad leadership.

So says SCOTUS, so say we all.

11B-Mailclerk

If the government holds “bonds” payable by itself to itself, thos are not “investments” or “bonds” or even “IOUs”.

(Left pocket) “I owe right pocket 20 bucks”

(Right pocket) “I owe left pocket 20 bucks”

No debts have been “issued”.

No one is “holding” a debt.

Neither pocket is legally obliged to pay.

SCOTUS already ruled, quite a while back, the those “Social Security” taxes are general revenue, not earmarked or obliged in any way. Once it hits the Federal bucket, it is simply money for spending.

Also ruled, Congress has no obligation to pay anyone anything under Social security, other than what their current rules say. They can reduce or eliminate the whole thing, at will, any time, through normal legislation. There is no legal obligation or right outside of the current law, and absolutely no future claims are valid based on prior practice or statement of congressmen.

None.

So, no, there is nothing in a “trust fund” , because no one issued any legal debt instruments that were sold to anyone. It is giant empty promise, and the claims to the contrary are utter sophistry by the naive and outright fraud by the knowing.

No legal obligation to pay.

No legal obligation to collect.

Simply a nice-sounding fraud.

social Security is utterly bankrupt. It has -never- been “solvent”. It was never meant to be. It is Tax-n-spend-and-promise. Done by anyone but the Feds, it would be the biggest Ponzi scheme financial crime in world history.

I would throw the Donks under the bus at this point, as it is their creature and their intentional fraud, but the Elephants haven’t exactly done Jack or Shit about the central crime, either.

Fraud. 100% bankrupt. By design.

Chickens. Roost. Assembling.

Comm Center Rat

Another excellent analysis 11B Mailclerk. Me and the Spousal Unit are in our early 60s and retired. Neither of us yet collect Social Security retirement benefits. With pension income and investments in retirement and non-retirement brokerage accounts we can fully fund our lifestyle. If we eventually get SS payments that money will be gravy because we financially prepared as if we’d never see a cent.

I’ve said it before but will repeat for all those nearing retirement: pay off your mortgage first. Try to enter retirement completely free of all debt including the house.

timactual

Shhhhh! Nobody is supposed to know that.

As PH2 says,
” the Treasury is essentially issuing Monopoly money”

The “technical” term is-
“fi·at mon·ey
noun: fiat money
inconvertible paper money made legal tender by a government decree.”

It is not backed by gold, silver, or anything other than the “full faith and credit of the US”. All that means is if you don’t like the Fed. Reserve notes you hold, the Treasury will be happy to replace them with other Fed. Reserve notes.

Where do you think all that “stimulus” money is coming from? The Treasury issues an “obligation” (note, bill, bond) and the Fed. buys it by creating an entry in the Treasury’s account. Voila!

See also “fractional reserve banking”, in which banks also create money.

Inbred Redneck

Of course, private employers with such unfunded liabilities would be subject to criminal penalties.

5th/77th FA

“…he cannot find a reasonable answer…”

New math? Fuzzy math? Common core math? Commie math (2+2=5)?

Think it goes back a bit farther than LBJ M’Lady, tho I agree it was that fat bastard that really pushed the sled over the top of the hill. His “Great Society” with the whole “Guns and Butter” programs of the 60s and his getting us deeply enmeshed in the Viet of the Nam. And it has been a rapid slippery slope since then. The Kongressional Klowne Kritters have been like a spoiled rotten young’un, in a candy store, with someone else’s debit card…with an unlimited line of credit…that they are not responsible for making sure it is paid. While they have enriched themselves, they are bankrupting the Country. Makes you wonder why some of them decided to retire in ’18. When the chickens come home to roost, they will find the fox is in the henhouse.

Wasn’t it Andy Jackson that was the last President to make sure the National Debt was paid and that we had a true balanced budget with surplus?

timactual

He had help from both sides of the aisle. Don’t forget it was Nixon who created the EPA, revenue sharing, etc. Republicans also regularly vote for increased spending in all areas.

Wireman611

It’s time to take the credit card away from the kids. If you work for the government in an administrative role there is no need for the civil retirement at twenty years. If you are in congress or the senate you are expected to be a citizen serving the needs of the people, again no need for retirement for them, specifically considering the self enrichment many of them have performed on a government salary. One of the prime example being Nancy Pelosi.

gitarcarver

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/06/25/irs-stimulus-checks-dead-people-gao/

Quote: “The federal government sent coronavirus stimulus payments to almost 1.1 million dead people totaling nearly $1.4 billion, Congress’s independent watchdog reported Thursday.

The Washington Post previously reported that the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service disbursed some payments of up to $1,200 each to dead people. But the astonishing scope of the problem had not been known.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, an independent investigative agency that reports to Congress, issued the finding as part of a comprehensive report on the nearly $3 trillion in coronavirus relief spending approved by Congress in March and April. It said it had received the information from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration in an accounting as of April 30.”

Unquote.

The problem came when the IRS told the legislature that as the checks were based on last year’s tax returns, that people had died since filing those returns. Instead of allowing the IRS and the Treasury Department to work together to not send out the payments to dead people, the legislature went right ahead with the program.

Make no mistake about this….the legislature (and probably the Executive Branch) knew of the issue and didn’t care.

It’s not their money from their pockets.

That’s another $1.4 billion down the tubes.

Ret_25X

the 1.4 billion is just the face amount on the checks.

How much did it cost to reconfigure IRS systems, reset data, and run the process to distribute the checks?

I’m betting that is not a trivial amount.

rgr769

My mother, who died a little over a year ago, received one of those checks. It was sent about two months before I received mine. I guess deceased taxpayers were a priority for the IRS.

11B-Mailclerk

They wanted to make sure the dead vote Democrat.

AW1Ed

Your Tax Dollars Went… Where?

I’ll take “Who is the FSA?” for a thousand, Alex.

Thunderstixx

The Social Security money has been stolen for decades. There is a filing cabinet filled with IOU’s for the trillions of dollars that have been stolen….
Seriously, it’s somewhere in Virginia.

timactual

When I moved to Parkersburg, W. Va. I was amused to see that one of the largest buildings in the city was the “Bureau of the Public Debt”. I guess they didn’t have room for all those IOUs in DC. Then again, Bobby Byrd did a lot for W.Va., including a Coast Guard finance center in Martinsburg, WVA.

SgtM

Im being moderated

Slow Joe

Oh man.

I was naively hoping the Army was funding some secret project to take over the hole wold, something like nanobots capable of infiltrating Vlad’s nuclear arsenal and destroying all the nukes at once.

Green Thumb

I wonder how much All-Points Logistics soaked up?

Tom S.

Hello, I’m the Michigan lawyer who Mark Skidmore references in the interview. Below is an excerpt from my original email to him.

“Why did the Treasury issue $95,648,584,000,000 (equal to ~ $281,000 per American) in securities in FY2016 only to turn around and redeem $94,225,757,000,000 of those securities in the same year? See the attached DAILY TREASUY STATEMENTS from 10/1/2015 and 9/30/2016 (note that the Federal government’s fiscal year generally starts on October 1 and ends on September 30 of the subsequent calendar year—unless those dates fall on a weekend).”

The DTS’s can be found at link below.
https://fsapps.fiscal.treasury.gov/dts/issues

E-4 Mafia 4 Life

You might ask, “How long would it take me to spend just $1 Trillion dollars?”
You can spend $1,000,000 dollars a day, 365 days a year and it would take you approximately 3000 years to spend a trillion dollars.

Tom S

I would encourage everyone to look at least at the Daily Treasury Statement from September 30, 2019 (the last day of the Federal Government’s 2019 fiscal year (DTS’s are only 2 pages long and are basically like looking at it’s checking account statement). The issue we are focusing/honed in on now is the “Government Account Series” line item(s) in Table III-A on the top of page two. That is where the crazy “churn” is happening and unexplained. $79 trillion per year in issues and redemption’s. It may help to think about it like when companies borrow money every month to make payroll and pay back that short term loan as receivables come in.