that is called accounting fraud, and if you’re Enron’s Bernie Ebbers you go to jail for over 20 years (i.e., about 10 times the sentence attorney Lynne Stewart got, and so far hasn’t had to serve, for providing material support to terrorists).

But if you’re the government, it is called business as usual.

I have an article on the homepage today about the Bush administration’s decision to keep the bleeding balance sheets and dodgy financial operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac off the federal budget — even though the government has seized the mortgage giants, the government is operating them, and the public is on the hook for their five trillion dollars in liabilities — which has potentially increased the national debt by over fifty percent.

It’s time to put Fan and Fred on the government’s books so we can see in black and white just how bad the government’s books are, so government is made to adhere to the same onerous disclosure and transparency standards with which it burdens business, and so we can know how deep is the hole we’re already in before we are asked to entertain more more bail-outs and private/public partnerships. If seeing the revised books makes people angry, it should — and then maybe we’ll get a real investigation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which might be just a tad more appropriate use of Congress’s time than issuing more subpoenas to Karl Rove and Harriet Myers.