Now, here’s a guy who can make you wake up screaming. David M. Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States, was on the radio yesterday. He laid out exactly how broke America is, and what the consequences are likely to be. Stephen King has nothing on Mr. Walker. He is also a former head of Jeremiah’s favorite former government agency, the GAO. You can see a video of him here. Oops, no you can’t! The 404 errors have started already.
In the interview, Walker scares the hell out of Terry Gross. Naturally, she blames it all on president Bush. Walker’s senate testimony, however, states that the crisis will not be solved by ending the war, ending earmarks, cutting defense, lapsing the Bush tax cuts or ending “waste & fraud.” He is after the big nut, the structural deficit, which means Social Security.
Surprisingly, Walker does not want to privatize social security. He just wants Congress to stop stealing from it. He casually mentions “Social Security cash surpluses, which have been used to help finance other government activities.” What? Our contributions aren’t sitting in a bond fund?
I heard the same interview. I don’t know how you could get it so wrong except to completely and purposefully misrepresent Mr. Walkers statements. As the head of the GAO under Presidents Bush I, Clinton, BushII and Obama, he stated we are in this predicament becasuse we are spending more than we are taking in. He backed this up with the fact that Bush II raised the debt almost double than what it was under all the previous presidents. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He stated that if we did not start to curb spending, and this meant reforming health care, making some hard decisions on cutting of different programs, which he did not go into detail on, we would end up with a debt of 50 trillion dollars in the next 20 years. He also stated that the health care plan now being proposed did not meet 4 crucial measurements that would be necessary to reduce these costs. I for one do not think either party is focused on this overwhelming problem. If they were we would not be caught in the partisan B.S. that is strangling are government. You can be sure that big money is driving this in the parties an want nothing to do with Mr. Walkers ideas. He stated that tax increases will be mandatory no matter who is in office and that these would not be just for those who make over $250K. He was also clear on the fact that the previous administration, would not even talk to him regarding the debt when he asked for an audience with President Bush. The Chinese certainly did, and they requested an audience with him (cause their worried). He made it clear that he told them nothing other than what was told to the American public. He stated it is simple, its all about the math, numbers don’t lie. The structural deficit is about spending more than we have. Regarding Social Security, it is paying from a negative balance as of 2009 do to the government using this fund for other programs. Scares the hell out of Terry Gross! You’ve got to be kidding me, this is the only news broadcast that even carried this mans warning. God bless Mr. Walker for tellling it like it is. We need to demand from all our representatives accountability.