Congressman Writes U.S. ‘Annual Report’ : Government: Rep. C. Christopher Cox has created a spending score card, outlining what he calls the magnitude of federal financial incompetence.

The federal government doesn’t manage your money as poorly as you might think. The truth is, its stewardship is worse than you would dare imagine.

That’s the message of an unusual document that Rep. C. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) will begin mailing this week to residents of the 40th Congressional District, which stretches from Huntington Beach to Laguna Beach and includes most of central Orange County.

Billed as the “Annual Report of the United States Government,” the four-page newsletter is Cox’s attempt to bring home to his constituents the magnitude of the federal government’s financial incompetence, the congressman said in an interview last week.

Adopting the style of a corporate annual report, the newsletter reduces hundreds of pages of government budget documents to bar graphs, a pie chart and a simple statement of income and expenses.

“It’s something that every shareholder expects from his or her company. It’s something that every taxpayer deserves from his or her government,” said Cox, 37, who is serving his first term in Congress. “But in fact, the government makes no effort to do it.”

Among the points that the Cox report highlights are these:

* Interest on the national debt amounted to more than $240 billion, or 17% of all federal expenditures, in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

* The $152-billion budget deficit for the year was 12 1/2% higher than anticipated, and amounted to nearly half of what the government spent on the military.

* The government spent nearly twice as much to assist troubled thrifts and banks as it did on transportation and nearly four times as much as it did on the environment, including maintenance of national parks and federally owned lands.

In the time he has spent in California during the winter congressional recess, Cox said, he has shown early versions of the report to many Orange County voters.

“The reaction is always a variation on the same theme,” he said. “People are aghast. . . . That is really the intended effect.”

A member of the House Committee on Government Operations, Cox has been interested in reforming the federal budget process since he worked as a senior deputy counsel in the Ronald Reagan White House. Last year Cox, as a member of Congress, introduced budget-related legislation that he had drafted during his days in the White House.

“The idea is just to get the facts out. It’s important for people to understand that interest on the national debt is almost as big as the entire military budget. And that social spending is greater than either,” Cox said.

“It’s important for people to realize that S&L; and bank insurance, in just the few months we got started on the problem in 1989, is already a major factor in the federal budget. This was just the camel’s nose under the tent.”

The document differs from official government reports in two substantial ways. On one hand, it analyzes how well the government met the fiscal goals it set at the beginning of the year. The Treasury Department makes little effort to do that each year because it is already working on the following year’s budget.

Secondly, the Cox report includes all income and expenditures, even those user fees and offsetting expenditures that officially are “off budget.” The result is a more realistic look at how much the government actually spends, Cox said.

Cox prepared the document with the help of an aide. It was officially released through the auspices of the House Republican Conference budget reform task force, which Cox co-chairs with Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-Ala.).