David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations”.
These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt
I see a lot of knee jerking from country club Republicans. Walker sees skyrocketing taxes as a problem not a solution. I agree completely with what I read here. I am so sick of boomers having a huge party and sticking us with all the bills.
Those boomers pais those same “bills” all of their lives.
Nobody gave them a free ride in the day when making a living was a Hell of a lot harder than it is now.
They paid their dues all of their lives.
I cannot disagree with this sentiment. Although I am a Boomer myself (yes, I admit it), my own generation has, by and large, acted selfishly here, as if the "huge party" you speak of were without any future cost.
Of course, anyone who knows me would not be likely to confuse me with one of those "country club Republicans."
But my comments were directed elsewhere, toward the politically correct, almost fetishistic love of multiculturalism that is now fashionable.
As to the author's central thesis--that the US resembles ancient Rome because of "declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government"--I would say that the "over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands" is the weakest part, as it seems to imply that our incursion into Iraq (and perhaps Afghanistan also) was a mistake. I disagree. But the rest of his equation strikes me as sound.
Whether or not this adds up to our being in a similar position to Rome, near the end of its glory days, is another question.