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When the U.S. Government Gives You a Lemon (oligarchy), Restructure and Make Lemonade

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Larry Fisher
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2. Restructuring the U.S. government to create a universal democratic government model (UDGM) that works for Americans and all citizens
This 1st section exposes more levels of political/corporate abuses, cover-ups, and crimes that used the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), financial software, and management consulting firms to supposedly produce accurate, corporate-style, government consolidated financial statement (CFSs) while intending the exact opposite result. This Ponzi scheme included all 3 government branches, the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) last 2 Comptroller Generals of the U.S., and an entire bureaucracy of unqualified accountants/auditors that political appointees needed to continue procuring these bogus corporate goods/services. GAO's audit of the 2013 CFSs in February 2014 noted "material weaknesses that prevented GAO from expressing an audit opinion on those CFSs (that these blatant levels of collusion/corruption had intentionally created), at a taxpayer cost of multibillions of dollars over the past 27 years. The 2nd section highlights the need for open, unfettered discussions between all 3 government branches' public officials and civil servant/contractor whistleblowers to fix (undo) the still hidden unconstitutional crimes perpetrated against the U.S. government over the past 36 years. This effort begins by eliminating the source of those built-in political/corporate deficiencies that have existed within all 3 U.S. government branches over the past 225 years AND exacerbated (even more) with the passage of the 1978 CSRA by instituting the following proposed government reforms:

" Congress: There is no point in restructuring the federal government when Congress allows lobbyists to rewrite legislation that continually undermines the executive/judicial branches' GS civil servants with increasing numbers/levels of political appointee managers. Fix this problem by requiring retroactive/fixed term limits for all members of Congress, ASAP.

" Executive/Judicial Branches: Replace all partisan/unqualified political appointee managers (and source of the 36 year, $17+ trillion dollar spike in the debt) with GS level non-partisan/ technically qualified professionals, ASAP. See 2nd section for more details.
The need for the above (and more) government reforms becomes apparent when a once democratic government allows its' politicians/political appointees to declare illegal the rights of security/non-security whistleblowers (1st paragraph), journalists like James Risen, and citizens like Ray McGovern to question the wisdom/legality of the U.S. government's national security and efficiency failures. Similarly, a 36 year, $17+ trillion dollar spike in the debt also gives its citizens the right to demand that all 3 dysfunctional government branches be restructured to transition this U.S. oligarchy back to a cost-effective democracy, starting by replacing all political appointees (and source of the debt) with GS level civil non-partisan/technically qualified civil servants. Cost effective, in this case, equates to operating the American people's government as a corporation that cuts 50% and more ($2 trillion dollars) from each annual federal budget, by eliminating political/corporate booty as one of its' now acceptable operating costs. Effectively, these proposed U.S. government reforms serve not only the best interests of Americans but of all citizens (worldwide) and thus a starting point for designing a single universal democratic government model (UDGM) for all citizens. What better place to begin this democratic dialogue between citizens and their governments than with the American people and their very troubled/dysfunctional U.S. government? See the 2nd section for more details on this UDGM. The following is an overview/history of how politicians used AICPA, financial software, and management consulting firm political appointees to unconstitutionally undermine all federal accounting/auditing offices to prevent an accurate accounting of each annual budget.

(1) A multibillion dollar political appointee example of U.S. government efficiency

In the early 1980's, I became aware of the U.S. government's lack of accounting procedures to produce corporate-style financial statements as a GS level Accounting Branch Chief at the Veterans Administration (VA). When I questioned my staff's use of crib notes to (manually) prepare the VA's Treasury Department (accounting) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (budgeting) financial statements, I was told that they had no viable written accounting procedures. Roughly translated, this meant that the Central Agencies' partisan/unqualified political appointee managers had rubber-stamped the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant (AICPA) deficient accounting processes that an entire bureaucracy was now legally required to follow/implement. Those Central Agency entities include the Government Accountability Office (GAO), OMB, and Treasury Department. My attempts to have the VA's political appointees pressure both the Central Agencies' political appointees and the AICPA for that written documentation were ignored.

In search of a solution, I spent 4 or 5 years modifying the AICPA's corporate accounting formula to create a single (AICPA-like) public sector accounting formula that generated the same standard integrated accounting/budgeting financial statements for all governments. I decided that if I could not work with the government that I would go around them, get a patent, and copyright a 396 book that I wrote, "Principles of Accounting, Budgeting & Cash Management For Government." I resigned from the VA in October 1986 and used that book to lobby Senator William Roth's staff and the Central Agencies' political appointees on the idea that if the AICPA could generate the same standard corporate financial statements (and summarize its various businesses' accounting data) using a single corporate accounting formula that same logic also applied to all governments. Specifically, a single public sector accounting formula could be used to summarize the Treasury (accounting) /OMB (budgeting) data of all federal departments, bureaus, and agencies to produce the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements (CFSs), as required of all corporations.

After 1 year of being unemployed, I needed a job and gave up on the patent idea and decided to rejoin the federal government to implement that single public sector accounting formula idea. On October 13, 1987, I was hired by the Treasury Department to implement this idea, followed by the additional hiring of 6 other GS level accountants [college accounting degrees and 2 with their Certified Public Account (CPA) certificates] and 1 information technology (IT) professional. However, instead of designing this software around this single public sector accounting formula (AICPA-like concept), the Central Agencies' political appointee managers had already placed 2 financial software packages, American Management Systems and Computer Data Systems Inc., on the GSA Schedule to fast track their procurement by an entire bureaucracy. After both software packages were tested and found to be incapable of generating a single mandated Treasury (accounting)/OMB (budgeting) financial statement, the Central Agencies' (GAO, OMB, and Treasury) political appointees were informed of this testing failure. They ignored these warnings and released this deficient software to an entire federal bureaucracy.

The following bullets contain but a few of the details regarding this (now) 27 year old Ponzi scheme (with no end in sight) that are detailed in the National Accountant Whistleblower Coalition (NAWBC), website's www.nawbc.com 4 sections:

" October 1990 -- The Central Agencies' political appointees founded the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) and covertly placed AICPA firms in charge of implementing its own deficient accounting standards (GAO's audit of the 1997 CFSs) that federal accountants/auditors were required (by law) to implement.

" July 1998 -- Senator Fred Thompson letter, Chairman of the Government Affairs Committee, characterize those FASAB (AICPA) accounting standards as fatally flawed where he chose to hide all levels of collusion/corruption.

" June 1999 - the Washington Times published an OPED, "At EPA, waste, fraud, and abuse," that (again) questioned the credibility of those federal FASAB (and AICPA) accounting standards that the Bill Clinton administration also now covered-up.

" December 15, 2008 - certified letter to the current/former Comptroller Generals of the U.S. questioned the accuracy of their Congressional testimony and claims of "significant progress" when federal financial statements are still prepared manually.

" February 6, 2009 letter - I received a letter from GAO's Chief Accountant (Robert F. Dacey) confirming my above statements involving government-wide cover-ups and with no public sector (AICPA-like) accounting formula to generate Congress' mandated CFSs.

" March 9, 2009 letter - My response to GAO's Chief Accountant questioned the accuracy of his statements, the government's supposed checks and balances, Congress' meaningless legislation, and cadre of professionals (high school GED's)

" September 10, 2010 -- The Obama administration declared a freedom of information act (FOIA) request as secret and confidential business information (CBI) to cover-up this collusion/corruption (again).

Additional information concerning this documented 27 year, multibillion dollar outsourcing failure, and the ongoing cover-ups/retaliation by the politician's political appointees, appears in the stories of an accountant whistleblower and 2 Department of Defense (DOD) auditors. As noted below, the federal government's covert replacement of its (SEC/all) professional accountants and auditors with unqualified people has also compromised the integrity of corporate financial statements, as documented in the below magazine articles:

" Forbes - "Is the SEC's Ponzi Crusade Enabling Companies To Cook the Books, Enron-Style?"

" RollingStone - "Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes" describes how the government's corporate managers shredded 18,000 Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) cases against their (former) companies (Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brother), and more.

Look at the above documentation and realize that politicians have been played like a well- tuned (financially-beneficial) fiddle that have placed their insatiable greed over the American people's financial security by now compromising the accuracy of both corporate and federal financial statements. Back in 1913, politicians (again because of financial greed/gross incompetence) relied on bankers for all levels of misinformation when they also passed a financially-unsound Federal Reserve Act (FRA) that used dollars as instruments of debt rather than value (backed by gold). Thus, there is no value (under the FRA) in creating accurate (corporate/public sector) financial statements because assets, liabilities, and equity accounts (in dollars/instruments of debt) are valueless and will always (ultimately) result in the collapse of both those corporations and governments. This is exactly why the U.S. government must dramatically decrease the size of each annual budget (and the number of meaningless dollars in circulation) with the ultimate goal of returning back to the gold standard (if possible), and corporate/public sector financial statements of value. See the below section for brief comments on beginning to address this very serious problem.

(2) Restructuring the U.S. government to create a universal democratic government model (UCDGM) that works for Americans and all citizens

The basic requirements of a cost effective corporation and federal (state, local, and foreign) government operation are one and the same. Those requirements include a competent Board of Directors, 3 independent government branches that support (and do not undermine) its GS level civil servants, and the highest qualified/credentialed staff and managers. The purpose of this section is to reiterate that one of the sole functions of the U.S. government is to support and defend the U.S. Constitution's 2 primary checks and balances that include: (1) 3 independent government branches, and (2) an executive/judicial branch that is comprised of non-partisan/technically qualified government service (GS) level professionals. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) should also be solely responsible for overseeing the highest qualifications of all GS level professional position standards that are on a par with the private sector, as was the case prior to the passage of the 1978 CSRA.

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I graduated from Michigan Technological University (MTU) in June 1968 with a BSBA in accounting and have been a federal accountant for 40 years, mostly as a whistleblower, now 11 years retired. During the period 1980 - 1986, as the Veterans (more...)
 

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