WHAT'S NOT IN THE NEWS...AND WHY?

$1 trillion in Social Security to fake U.S. budget deficit numbers for next five years
Posted by: Admin on Saturday, October 16, 2004 - 07:05 AM GMT
 
The media keep reporting the fake U.S. budget deficit numbers. For example, a July 31, 2004 Washington Post story states:
The White House forecast yesterday that the U.S. budget deficit for this year will be a highest-ever $445 billion
A Sep. 7, 2004 Washington Post story states:
Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry retorted, "Only George W. Bush could celebrate over a record budget deficit of $422 billion."
An Oct. 14, 2004 Reuters story states:
The U.S. budget deficit expanded to $412.6 billion in the 2004 fiscal year
However, those numbers are cooked by including the Social Security Trust Fund. As explained by a Nov. 13, 1996 U.S. Congress research paper:
On-Budget and Off-Budget Entities. Under the unified budget approach, first implemented for fiscal year 1969, trust funds and federal funds are merged together into a single budget presentation. Over the years, Congress and the President have enacted specific exceptions to this approach. Entities included in the unified budget are referred to as "on-budget" entities; those excluded from the unified budget are known as "off-budget" entities. At present, the Social Security trust funds and the postal service fund are the only off-budget entities. The consolidated budget totals presented in the budget include both on-budget and off-budget transactions.
A Sep., 2004 Congressional Budget Office publication conveniently provides budget numbers for both the "off-budget" and the "on-budget", as estimated by both the CBO and the OMB. The CBO pegs the real 2004 ("on-budget") deficit at $574 billion, and the OMB pegs it at $599 billion. The CBO estimates a surplus of $153 billion for the "off-budget" (i.e. mostly baby boomers paying into the Social Security Trust Fund for the own impending retirement) to arrive at a "unified" deficit of $422 billion, the mythical number quoted by the media and even the supposed opponent to the current administration.

(SEE: www.underreported.com)...Scanning to the right in the same chart, the rightmost column sums up the budgets for the five years from 2005 to 2009. A trillion dollars of Social Security Trust Fund money is earmarked to reduce the five-year deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion.
If the past year is any indication, this trillion dollars will never be reported in the mass media.

As highlighted by 321gold.com, according to an Oct. 21, 2004 Toronto Globe & Mail newspaper article (free rense.com cache):
China's Communist rulers have a blunt message for anyone who frets about the planned Chinese takeover of Canada's biggest mining company: Get ready for more to come.

In an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail in Beijing this week, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing made it plain that the controversial $7-billion takeover of Noranda Inc. is just a small element in a much more ambitious strategy of investment in Canada's resources sector to feed China's voracious appetite for raw materials.

"Given our rapid economic growth, we're facing an acute shortage of natural resources," the Foreign Minister told The Globe.
"No matter how plentiful our natural resources, when you divide them by our population of 1.3 billion, the figure will be very small," he said.
"The Chinese government is encouraging Chinese enterprises to make investments in Canada, particularly in the field of resources exploitation."
It is the first public comment on the Noranda issue by a senior Chinese leader since the controversy over the planned takeover erupted last month.


Towns Hand Out Tax Breaks [and cash], Then Cry Foul as Jobs Leave
Posted by: Admin on Saturday, October 30, 2004 - 06:05 PM GMT 
As highlighted by corpwatch.org, according to an Oct. 20, 2004 New York Times article of the same title (free cache at the corpwatch.org link):
Galesburg, Illinois, People in this big-shouldered town, birthplace of the poet Carl Sandburg, say Maytag broke their hearts. After a decade of tax breaks and union concessions to keep the company in a place that has been making refrigerators for more than 50 years, Maytag closed its factory last month, terminating 1,600 jobs.
Maytag may be done with Galesburg, but Galesburg is not done with Maytag.
District Attorney Paul L. Mangieri wants to sue Maytag to recoup what he says were excess tax breaks in a broad package of incentives to keep the company here. Much of the money, he said, came from a purse that would have gone to schools in this economically fragile community.

"We gave Maytag these incentives, and they accepted them," said Mr. Mangieri, a Navy veteran who grew up in a small town not far from here in western Illinois. "We did it based on faith and trust. If we don't do anything now, it sends a message that we lack the resolve to treat the rich and privileged the same as everybody else."

Maytag says it honored its agreement and took just the breaks to which it was entitled.

There are echoes of Mr. Mangieri's argument in Putnam County, Fla., which gave $4.5 million in cash and tax breaks to attract a call center owned by Sykes Enterprises, only to have it pull up stakes this month after less than five years in Palatka.

"We ought to sue them," said Timothy Keyser, a Putnam County lawyer who opposed the tax breaks from the start. "They sold the county a bill of goods."

[...] In New York, State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi said in an audit this year that a program that gives millions of dollars in tax breaks to businesses that promise to create work ended up rewarding some businesses that lost jobs. Other state officials disputed those findings.