Congress is cooking the books

[Zogo]

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060803/1a_coverart03.art_dom.htm

looks like congress is cooking the books. they even get to write their own accounting rules.

[VeeKaChu]

Wow. The SEC, a government agency, prosecutes financial institutions for this same thing all day long. In fact the Enron disaster spurred even harsher regulation and sanctions for what were once widely-accepted but merely winked-at dubious "practices".

This whole shitty Evil Empire Government we're under reminds me of that "I AM ABOVE THE LAW!!!" record executive from South Park, who kept slicking his comb-over down with a tube of "SPLOOGE".

[Kartikeya-OD]

They are not cooking the books; your title was poorly chosen. First the article is mixing two types of analysis here. Cash analysis and audited analysis. Both use different types of criteria to report on for specific reasons. Typically most businesses with a revenue over 1 million dollars will use cash analysis for simplicity. It doesn't take into account previous debts, deposits, or interest from other accounts. It's mainly used for that fiscal year or whatever range of years being used. We use cash analysis for each of our financial quarters as well as our fiscal year. We outsource usually once every two years to have an audited analysis completed. It’s a much bigger undertaking and more involved and usually requires an accounting firm months to complete it.

I could own $99,000,000 in my savings account, yet only do cash analysis on my checking account which might have $1,000 in it for that year. Based off the cash analysis it would appear I'm not a wealthy person. Whereas an audited analysis takes a broader approach and links all aspects of my account. Both have their purposes in the business world.

However what the article is doing is trying to link Medicare and Social Security into the Governments cash analysis which is not fitting at all due to the nature of the programs and what a cash analysis is created for. Nor has the Government or any business included accrual type accounts in a cash analysis EVER. It would heavily obscure the cash analysis and frankly would be impossible to complete correctly.

Is the Government abusing their cash analysis? Maybe who knows however that not near what this article was putting out there.

[Zogo]

They are not cooking the books; your title was poorly chosen.

what would you call it? hiding the books?

[Kartikeya-OD]

The article's original title from the author will suffice.