A 2005 deficit of $760 billion

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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House upbeat about this country's finances.

GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: This year's deficit will actually come in at about $296 billion.

ROMANS: But Congressman Jim Cooper says America's books are far worse than that.

REP. JIM COOPER, (D) TN: The president is using old-fashioned accounting, accounting that would literally be illegal for any large enterprise in America.

ROMANS: He points to a different set of numbers. A financial report he says the White House doesn't want you to read. It's the official audited financial statement published by the Treasury Department, using accounting required of all big public companies in this country.

Cooper, a fiscally conservative Democrat, is so worried about the nation's true finances, he's having them published himself. The Treasury's financial report of the United States is devastating. A 2005 deficit of $760 billion. More than double the White House numbers. America's debts and commitments? An incredible $49 trillion. Using the treasury's audited books, those surpluses in the later Clinton years never happened. And this country looks headed for financial disaster.

COOPER: The hidden set of books reveals that we're borrowing fantastic sums of money from countries all over the world.

ROMANS: Why the two sets of books? The White House simply counts the money coming in and going out. But the Treasury includes future obligations, like federal pensions and healthcare costs. Add in the very real cost of Medicare and Social Security, and this government runs deficits of trillions of dollars.

The White House Budget Office and the Treasury Department would not respond on camera. But said no one is hiding this second set of books.

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ROMANS (on camera): No matter which accounting you believe, both of these sets of books are alarming. Either way, at this pace, before long, we'll spend more on interest for our debts than our basic domestic needs. Lou?

DOBBS: It's remarkable what people don't realize about this. And this broadcast is going to start using that other set of books, just to keep it very clean, and this will upset as well, not only the Bush administration, but the Clinton administration, because if you look at the real picture, we didn't have a budget surplus during the Clinton years, after all. Christine, thank you very much, Christine Romans.

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