From CNN White House Correspondent Kelly Wallace
September 27, 2000Web posted at: 4:51 p.m. EDT (2051 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year's record surplus of $122.7 billion.
"Eight years ago, our future was at risk," Clinton said Wednesday morning. "Economic growth was low, unemployment was high, interest rates were high, the federal debt had quadrupled in the previous 12 years. When Vice President Gore and I took office, the budget deficit was $290 billion, and it was projected this year the budget deficit would be $455 billion."...
Haliburton Company: Accounting for Cost Overruns and Recoveries (click here)
In July 2002, a legal watchdog group, Judicial Watch, announced that it was suing Halliburton Company for overstating revenues during the period 1998 to 2001. The group's contention was that Halliburton used fraudulent accounting practices to boost revenues and hide a deteriorating financial position from investors. Specifically, the lawsuit centered around the way the company recognized claims recoveries on long-term construction projects. Prior to 1998, the company's policy was to book cost overrun expenses as soon as they occurred, but not to book claims recoveries as revenue until the repayment amount was agreed to with the client. In 1998, the company changed policies to begin estimating future recoveries and recognizing them in the same period that overrun expenses were realized. The company, which had been suffering from a recent slowdown in business and large litigation losses from asbestos lawsuits, claimed that its accounting practices were permitted under generally accepted accounting principals (GAAP). Judicial Watch, however, claimed the accounting policy inflated revenues over the four-year period by as much as $534 million. This case focuses on the accounting issues and disclosure policy of the company during the 1998 to 2001 period. Readers of the case are asked to assess whether the company's policies and decisions were appropriate in the relevant areas of accounting and disclosure.
Iraq spends little on rebuilding despite huge surplus: US report (click here)
18 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Iraq is amassing a huge budget surplus of soaring oil export revenues, but is spending little on reconstruction, for which the United States is bearing the financial burden, a US government report said.
The Government Accounting Office report issued Tuesday said that, counting Baghdad's actual budget balance for 2005 to 2007, and the projected budget of 2008, the country would have amassed a surplus of up to 79.3 billion dollars out of revenues of up to 182.2 billion dollars.
But little of that money is going to maintaining and rebuilding key civil infrastructure, the GAO report said.
Over 2005-2007, "the Iraqi government spent only one percent of total expenditures to maintain Iraq- and US-funded investments such as buildings, water, and electricity installations, and weapons."...
