Now, we're hearing it right from the bandits themselves in offhanded and somewhat obtuse remarks like thes:

In the latest issue of Forbes Magazine, owner, publisher, and ex-presidential candidate Steve Forbes wrote an article titled "Fact and Comment" (page 27), in which he said; "Our national debt today is a little more than one-third of GDP" (Gross Domestic Product).

Sunday morning, on Tim Russert's Meet The Press Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio) who happens to be Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said; "And recently the economists from Goldman Sachs told The New York Times that the percentage of our debt to our gross domestic product is moving from about 33 percent to 49 percent, and they believe that will undermine our economy instead of stimulating it."

The GDP for fiscal 2002 was $10.4 trillion. That's a fact. You may dispute the way it's garnered, but there's no argument that is the amount recorded and to which these gentlemen are referring.

Here's what the Treasury's Bureau of Public Debt recorded as the national debt on April 24, 2003, to the penny.

What are these guys talking about? At $6.46 trillion, the national debt sure looks more like about 62 percent of the GDP.

Here's another table from the Bureau of Public Debt's page on who holds the debt.

Aha, now it's obvious. These crafty authorities are just talking about the honest investor side of the national debt, what the government deceptively labels "Debt Held by the Public" to make you believe that they will somehow take care of the other side without using taxpayer money, an absolute impossibility.

The Debt Held by the Public, more properly Investor Debt, is certainly "a little more than one-third of the GDP" as Mr. Forbes claims. I find the $3.7 trillion a little higher than the 33 percent (35.7 percent) of the GDP Senator Voinovich claims we have today. You would think that the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee could get his figures a little more accurate, wouldn't you?

The "Intragovernmental Holdings" side of the national debt is totally fraudulent. Ninety-three percent of it is held by entitlements like Social Security and seventeen other entitlements from unemployment and military retirement to Indian funds. The other seven percent is mostly perks the jerks have set up for themselves. Just name a trust, put some bogus bonds in it, and when you need real money cash them in from the Treasury's general fund of current income tax receipts or money borrowed from investors.

Standing at $2.7 trillion, this fraud is worse than anything private sector corporations have done to rip off their employees and investors. In fact, it makes them look like children at play.

The "Intragovernmental Holdings" side of the national debt could be eliminated tomorrow without consequence to anyone but the Beltway Bandits themselves. Both Mr. Forbes and Senator Voinovich know this, that's why it doesn't play a role in their thinking. They are telling you by omission that it's bogus and doesn't count.

This does not mean, however, that you will escape double taxation any time an entitlement needs to cash-in some of its bonds in this fraudulent account. I just wrote a detailed account of the billions we paid last month in double taxation plus interest. (see: "Double Taxed in the Month of March")