By James P. Tucker Jr.
The Minnesota state government shut down in July, closing state parks on a normally busy holiday weekend, because of a $5 billion “budget deficit.” At least 10 states have expanded gambling options for casinos, inviting more mobsters into their streets, again because of “budget deficits,” which they blame on the weak economy. However, it’s not “deficits” but states hiding money that causes this pain. Minnesota’s shutdown threw thousands of state employees out of work. Construction projects stalled. Millions of dollars in state revenues were lost. But Minnesota had $2.9 billion hidden from taxpayers in fiscal 2010, which ended June 30.
Assets exceeded liabilities by $10.9 billion. Another $2.9 billion in “unrestricted net assets” were hidden from public view.
What all states are not saying is they have plenty of bucks salted away, but you aren’t supposed to know that. Each year, all state and local governments prepare a financial report on assets, liabilities, revenues and expenditures called the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, or CAFR. You read about the budget and how your tax dollars are supposed to be spent in your local newspaper, but you don’t read about money hidden in the CAFR, because America’s controlled media hides these important facts.
CAFRs combine the financial reports of government agencies at all levels. They report all government funds, including those held outside the government treasury. It cites amounts owed the government but not received by the end of the fiscal year. It contains information on real property and other fixed assets and long-term obligations held outside the government treasury.
Walter Burien, a former commodity trader and leading authority on CAFRs, claims that state governments are sitting on more than $600 billion worth of assets. And that’s just the states. When you tally up the holdings of all 85,000 local, state and federal governments, the value of all of the assets comes to about $60 trillion, says Burien.
“Being that the CAFR is the accounting document for every local government, and with it effectively being blacked out for the last 60 years, this intentional omission of coverage is the biggest conspiracy that has ever taken effect in the United States,” said Burien. It’s “the biggest game in town.”
Alan Greenspan, a Bilderberg luminary, got it right years ago when he testified as chairman of the privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve before a Senate Committee: “I’m of the old fiscal school that you raise revenues for basic government purposes and if you don’t have those purposes you give the money back or you don’t tax it. . . . [P]rivate rates of return are significantly higher than the government rates of return.”
The good news is that, thanks to the Internet, it is becoming increasingly difficult for governments to bury their assets. A quick search on the Internet turned up thousands of websites dedicated to exposing CAFRs.
Since 1975 AFP editor emeritus James P. Tucker Jr. has won widespread recognition for his reports on the intrigues of global power blocs such as the Bilderberg Group. Tucker is the author of Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary. Containing 272 pages, loaded with photos, the book recounts Tucker’s experiences over the last quarter century at Bilderberg meetings.
