A Sneak Peek Into, The USA’s Checkbook

A Checkbook That Horrifies Me

As a CPA, seeing inside people’s checkbooks is a routine, regular occurrence. After many years of experience, I had come to believe that there is nothing that could surprise me. There is, however, one checkbook that actually horrifies me –  the checkbook of the United States Treasury!

I’m not sure how to describe the feeling I get. It seems strangely personal. The only analogy I can come up with is when parents are shocked to discover that their college kid has run up a huge balance on a credit card. They thought the kid was responsible and could be trusted only to be smacked in the face with a big debt to pay.

The U.S. Treasury has a website where America’s checkbook is exposed in plain sight.   Listed is every business day’s beginning cash balance, then the receipts, then spending, and, finally, the ending balance. Of course, as you would expect the numbers are huge --  rounded in millions of dollars.

Looking at the itemized list of expenses, is truly a “devil in the details” experience! How has our government discovered so many ways to spend money? Money that doesn’t belong to it. A long-long time ago, I attended a sales training seminar which taught that price is not an object when selling to someone who is spending other people’s money.