$222 trillion in liabilities facing the U.S. with little accounting or understanding – time to support THE INFORM ACT

The $12 trillion official U.S. debt is one twentieth of the total $222 trillion net-of-tax liabilities facing our country and which have placed our country into what is effectively a state of undeclared bankruptcy. Both parties have spent six decades accumulating massive off-the-book obligations, which will blow up in our faces and those of our children, no less than Detroit’s municipal pension plans are blowing up in the faces of police and firefighters who risked their working lives for that city only to have their retirement income stolen. It’s time to stop lying about America’s fiscal policy.

Larry Kotlikoff
Professor of Economics
Boston University

Reading the above statement should make you concerned, very concerned. What Professor Kotlikoff is saying is that the U. S. debt is far greater than current accounting methods reveal. The promises made by our politicians have created trillions in liabilities that go unaccounted for, but will come due for future generations. The INFORM ACT is an effort to change the rules so that the true liabilities can be dealt with.

I urge you to learn more about this effort here and lend your support by endorsing the Act.

Dear Fellow Economists and Other Fellow Citizens,

Please join the 11 Nobel Laureates in Economics, prominent former government officials, and others listed here in endorsing the INFORM ACT.

The INFORM ACT requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the General Accountability Office (GAO), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to do fiscal gap accounting and generational accounting on an annual basis and, upon request by Congress, to use these accounting methods to evaluate major proposed changes in fiscal legislation.

The INFORM ACT is a bi-partisan initiative. The bill was introduced Senators Kaine (Democrat from Virginia) and Senator Thune (Republican from South Dakota) and is being co-sponsored by Senator Coons (Democrat from Delaware) and Senator Portman (Republican from Ohio). The Bill will shortly be introduced on a bi-partisan basis in the House of Representatives.