The organization later imploded, brought down by deceptive accounting, high costs and the use of the charity's money to pay for personal expenses of various executives and board members.

Ms. Watkins said she thought Mr. Lay had been duped and failed to comprehend the full implications of the deceptive accounting she outlined for him in their August meeting.

On the fiscal front, this administration has used deceptive accounting to ram through repeated long-run tax cuts in the face of mounting deficits.

Though no big company in Europe has yet been driven into bankruptcy by deceptive accounting, Mr. Bolkestein said, "you should never rule out the possibility of a WorldCom situation occurring here."

And deceptive accounting, which lured the public into buying stock even as insiders were bailing out, must have been very widespread indeed.

In addition to accusing the Governor of deceptive accounting, the Finance Committee report charged the administration with failing to respond adequately to Federal tax changes.

Short sellers, who profit when stocks fall, and some analysts contend that Tyco uses deceptive accounting to inflate its reported growth and profits.

The investigative report is expected to show that deceptive accounting occurred at least as early as 1993, according to people who have been briefed on preliminary findings.

They pointed out that most institutional investors were hoodwinked by WorldCom and Enron with deceptive accounting.

So Congress will keep working on the regular spending and revenue bills, laced with deceptive accounting to ease the pain.