Posted on 08/14/2007 3:10:52 PM PDT by Sterlis
The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.
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.
Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “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”.
“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”
Mr Walker’s views carry weight because he is a non-partisan figure in charge of the Government Accountability Office, often described as the investigative arm of the US Congress.
While most of its studies are commissioned by legislators, about 10 per cent – such as the one containing his latest warnings – are initiated by the comptroller general himself.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Walker said he had mentioned some of the issues before but now wanted to “turn up the volume”. Some of them were too sensitive for others in government to “have their name associated with”.
“I’m trying to sound an alarm and issue a wake-up call,” he said. “As comptroller general I’ve got an ability to look longer-range and take on issues that others may be hesitant, and in many cases may not be in a position, to take on.
“One of the concerns is obviously we are a great country but we face major sustainability challenges that we are not taking seriously enough,” said Mr Walker, who was appointed during the Clinton administration to the post, which carries a 15-year term.
The fiscal imbalance meant the US was “on a path toward an explosion of debt”.
“With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks,” said Mr Walker, a former senior executive at PwC auditing firm.
Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an “unsustainable path”.
“Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernise everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.”
Mr Walker said he would offer to brief the would-be presidential candidates next spring.
“They need to make fiscal responsibility and inter-generational equity one of their top priorities. If they do, I think we have a chance to turn this around but if they don’t, I think the risk of a serious crisis rises considerably”.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Search is your friend. :-)
My guess is he is a liberal Johnny One Note. My guess is he believes the cure for all our ills is to raise taxes and allow Queen Hillary to dispense the proceeds as she feels appropriate.
I thought faith destroyed the empire. A turning away from authority and toward free will. Doing your own thing caused a setback of some 1200 years before it started paying dividends big time. Just like liberal policies today, intrinsically good but fatally ahead of it’s time.
Why that’s just silly! Ancient Rome was destroyed by internal divisions over who controlled the government, excessive spending on popular expenditures, uncontrolled immigration, debauched lifestyles, lack of respect for God & His laws, and ...........uh.....nevermnind........
Oh great fiscal know it alls. If your doom and gloom predictions are true, please explain to us how the British Govt managed to substain a “National Debt” for all most 400 years and counting?
Oh another note to fiscal hysterics. Just WHERE are those govts going to “dump” their US bonds? See they have to SELL THEM to someone.
...or they can just stop buying them.
Uh, no Rome didn’t fall from that. It fell mainly chronic political instability brought on by repeated combat between facts that damaged or destroyed a good chunck of it tax base added to an inability effectively administer and control its territory.
2 items that do not in the least apply to the good old USA.
By depending on the USA to shoulder its major military burdens for the past 100?
“Oh great fiscal know it alls. If your doom and gloom predictions are true, please explain to us how the British Govt managed to substain a “National Debt” for all most 400 years and counting?”
The Empire and American bail outs.
...by declining from a world power to part of the European Union?
Aztlan.................
LOL. I assume you were joking. There will never be a time when leftist policies produce anything except ever increasing government power ending in a bankrupt totalitarian state controlling the population with bread (welfare) and circuses (survivor).
If you weren't joking, what events do you see over the next 1,000 years that will make leftist policies effective? About the only thing I can imagine that would produce that effect would be genetic engineering that would fundamentally alter human nature.
RIGHT! Sure we should just ignore all factual reality about Rome because the facts do not validate the bubble world dogma as screamed by fringer third rate Politically Corrupted media personalities.
Too bad the real world is not the simple place the chicken littles think it is.
Whatever God does once, he does twice............old Jewish proverb........
Rome hung on as many centuries as they did, because they were blessed (if it may be called that) with enemies much less organized than themselves. The greater Roman Empire, grown too unwieldy to be governed only from Rome alone, was in the process of fracture long before the Christian religion was widely adopted in the Roman world. Byzantium was, for all practical purposes, pretty much independent of Rome from about 300 AD on, but was still largely allied with Rome.
Until Rome really needed to be defended.
>Why tht’s just silly! Ancient rome was destroyed by internal divisions over who controlled the government, excessive spending on popular expenditures, uncontrolled immigation, debauched lifestyhles, lack of respect for God and His laws, and.....uh.....nevermind....<
Very good, Red. Add unaccountable massive foreign aid with huge trade deficits on top of an expensive war, and you have the complete American pattern for self-destruct.
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