Hidden Tax Payer $$ is Fraud--We're Not in Debt After All?

Did you see the headline about a suburb of Detroit, already with a high crime rate, not only turning off their city street lights because they "couldn't pay" their own electricity bill, they also had the lights physically removed out of the ground?  Many cities are cutting back services (fire, police, trash, road repairs, etc.), and states are threatening to cut pensions and social security while they wait for a federal bailout, such as what's happening in Rhode Island.

However, the media's not talking about the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) that all levels of government have--federal, state, local, and even municipalities--and have had since 1946.   It’s never reported on their “budget” or in any other form to the public.   Budgets are about the current year only, whereas CAFR is an accumulation over a period of many years, with institutional funds, enterprise or financial holdings, assets and total investment incomes, for both government and nongovernmental entities, each having their own budget and own account that never get mixed in with public records, and are collected from the tax payer through government fees.  

Wikipedia states, “While a budget may indicate that a specific government or agency has financial trouble and debt as a result of excess spending within the select grouping of "general fund" accounts, the CAFR may indicate that overall the same government entity has many facets possessing large holdings and income considerably greater than what is shown in a budget report or the ‘general fund’ alone.”  Within the government level, it’s considered as a “surplus” that they have already determined can never be refunded (or revealed) to the tax payers for any reason.  When asked about it, there’s denial to the public that it exists, but when presented with evidence that it does exist, then comes the hard-line refusal to refund it with a long line of blatant excuses that are not true.

• In 2010, Oregon Rep. Bruce Hanna during general session when the floor was discussing what to do about the state's 3.5 billion dollar budget shortfall (fire employees, cut back on services, close state parks), stood up with the cover page from the (Oregon) state CAFR in hand and stated that in less than a few minutes he found $3.5B to satisfy the state shortfall, therefore being no shortfall when comparing the state CAFR and the previous "selective" presentation of the State general purpose operating budget.

Lt. Col. Klatt accidentally learned about the CAFR’s in 1998 and exposed them by going public, including a website titled “The Truth About State and Local Governments Having Excess of Your Tax Dollars They Are Not Using” found here: http://cafrman.com/


What do you think about this well-kept "secret" from all of us, especially during these rough economic times?  Is it for "real" or somebody's mis-interpretation?  If it's for real, why isn't the mainstream media covering it so that the tax payer is protected from fraud?