But that is just one of the many ironies of Washington. You are about to enter the twilight zone of hypocrisy and misinformation as budget fights begin. After all, Congress has only been wrangling over the budget for 2002 since January. The various House and Senate Budget, Appropriations, Ways & Means, Finance and Tax Committees of the new 107th Congress missed three months, an entire quarter, that would normally have been devoted to these tough decisions.

Let's look at some of the propaganda, smoke, distortions, and booga-booga stories you can expect in the remaining budget battle weeks of fiscal 2001.

Shutdowns

Politicians and their loyal but befuddled press will, no doubt, again bring us all sorts of threats of government shutdowns. They will again point to those that occurred in December-January of 1995-6 when the budget had not yet been decided. And, again, it will not matter that those shutdowns were caused by Newt and Bob refusing to raise the national debt ceiling until an appointment could be agreed upon to decide when they could "balance the unified budget" forever. Ironically, in November of 1997, it was finally agreed that the year 2002 would be the time for this balanced budget. A time when stealing entitlement money would reach proportions equal to and above any deficit ever run.

But don't expect the press to understand this. They would rather deal in scare tactics despite the fact that the government has always had a mechanism to avoid shutdowns over budget negotiations. It's called a "continuing resolution" and it means that if we go into a new fiscal year without finalizing a new budget, the rate of spending from the old budget will continue in effect until the new budget is resolved. There's even a bill in Congress to make continuing resolutions automatic so they don't have to be voted into effect week after week, month after month.

Lack-Boxes

As nebulous as the contract republicans thought they had in their pockets, today's politicians deal in ethereal lock boxes. At least four major lock-box bills of some sort passed the House of Representatives by nearly unanimous votes only to die in the Senate, filibustered and kept from coming to a vote by the Senate democrats no less.

Today it's the vogue to pretend that you can have your cake and eat it too. There's an implicit agreement, rather than a law, not to touch Social Security or Medicare profits for anything other than paying down one side of our national debt while the other side rises dollar-for-dollar with interest added. Interests that cost nothing to add, by the way.

We're making limited progress exposing the falsities of entitlement trust funds that are really debit black holes, but don't expect the press to grasp the fact that the government is saving a mere six cents in accrued interest with every dollar we give them from Social Security profits. Heck, they still think the debit black holes are just an "accounting fiction" and despite Greenspeak's insistence these are enforceable markers or, as he puts it "claims on real resources"—your income tax dollars.

Day of Reckoning

Calculated and deliberate misuse of the English language, plus the falsification of numbers, are amongst the politician's strongest bag of tricks. With only weeks to go in the fiscal year, and a public that can then easily turn to the record, the politicians don't care. They know that it's the amount of noise they can make, the conviction in their voice when they lie, and the gullibility of the public that really counts. The blunderbuss is what people remember if they remember anything at all.

Shortly after the fiscal year ends on September 30th, we will be able to read the Treasury Reports. Ledgers that don't speculate or play guessing games, but merely record the flow of money in and out, on budget and off budget. Books kept by bean counters.

Sit back, enjoy the show, but take names. There's an election year coming up.