Why America Has Two Debt Ceilings | Commentary
In what is being hailed as the “great bipartisan act” of 2014, members of Congress and the president agreed on Feb. 15 to suspend the federal government’s debt limit through March 2015. The suspension applied to the $17.2 trillion in debt that is measured by currently outstanding U.S. Treasury bills. But this did not take into consideration America’s other “debt ceiling” — the one that is approaching $78 trillion and that unfortunately has no statutory limit. The $61 trillion


Why We Need Accrual Accounting in Washington
In the United States various initiatives dating back to the 1940s - including two Hoover Commission reports, 1949 and 1955 - recommended the adoption of governmentwide accrual accounting. In 1967, the President's Commission on Budget Concepts - a temporary 'blue ribbon' commission headed by the Secretary of Treasury - recommended that the accrual basis of accounting replace the 'cash basis' (as soon as feasible) for measuring receipts and disbursements. President Johnson acce