WASHINGTON (AAAP) – The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.

The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The release of the update—usually scheduled for mid-July—has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town Aug. 7 on its summer recess.

The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.

Reporting from Washington — As the watchdog of the government’s massive bailout of the financial sector, Neil M. Barofsky had a simple question: What had the nation’s banks done with all their bailout money?

Can’t be answered, said the Treasury Department, because of the way banks move money internally. The department declined to put the question to the banks.

And so Barofsky started asking financial institutions himself, getting answers from more than 300 that had received federal bailout money and learning to what extent they had used the money to increase their lending, buy competitors or build their cash reserves.

The banking survey, and the refusal of Treasury officials to conduct it themselves, were revealed as Barofsky issued a stinging report Monday that complained of a lack of transparency in the Obama administration’s management of the giant financial services bailout program.

The report came as critics of the administration said that the White House has fallen short of its promises to run a more open government. Among other areas, the critics cite the president’s conduct of the healthcare debate, which has included closed-door White House meetings with powerful interest groups.

“You can’t ask the basic questions or have a debate about the fundamental policy questions without information,” Barofsky said in an interview.

Why would Mr. Barofsky tell the truth? Because that’s his job, damnit! His position exists to bring transparency to this process, rather than keep stuffing it all under the carpet and hoping that nobody notices that there is an elephant-sized lump in the middle of the floor!

The STOOGES on CNBC have made clear their intent this morning and left NOTHING to the imagination. Facts ARE CNBC, whether you like them or not, and this sort of blatantly-transparent attempt to cover up the facts and truth by smearing Barofsky is an outrage.

This table is on page 134 of the report – the entire report should be required reading for every American, so you can see exactly what sort of outright lying and financial fraud you’re being forced to support, despite your expressed opposition in September and October by a ratio of 100 to 300:1 as expressed by calls to Congress prior to the passage of the EESA/TARP.

If you can come to any conclusion other than the fact that this entire fiasco has been anything more than a blatant attempt to force the taxpayer to eat trillions of dollars of losses incurred due to imprudent and even fraudulent practices on Wall Street, you’ve got a VERY active imagination.