Should Congress be in jail?

for violating Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley? Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act subjects CEOs to potential criminal liability if their company cannot pass a financial audit. Well guess who failed their latest audit (hat/tip: The Hill):

The federal government’s financial report for fiscal 2015 was unable to pass an audit by the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO), the watchdog announced Thursday. The GAO said it could not render an opinion on the U.S. consolidated financial statements for reasons including issues with the Department of Defense’s finances, the government’s inability to account for some transactions and the government’s ineffective report-preparing process. “Our report on the government’s consolidated financial statements underscores the fact that much more work needs to be done to ensure our policymakers receive the accurate financial information needed to make difficult short-term and long-term spending decisions,” GAO head Gene Dodaro said in a news release. The watchdog said it has not been able to give an opinion on the government’s accrual-based consolidated financial statements since 1997, when they were first prepared.

While the GAO may not be able to give an opinion on the government’s financial statement, the report does provide some “interesting” information. For example, the government’s largest “asset” is 1.2 trillion in  loan payments owed to the government– the vast majority of  which is student loan debt. So the federal government’s biggest asset is debt owed to it by struggling recent college graduates? According to the report, the Federal Government’s net worth is -18.2 trillion, which is a decline from last year’s -17.7 trillion. While the audit may be incomplete, it does make a strong case for Campaign for Liberty’s push for Real Cuts, Right Now. For more on the audit see this great article from Sovereign Man.