U.S. Heading For Financial Trouble?
Comptroller Says Medicare Program Endangers Financial Stability
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U.S. Headed For Fiscal Crisis?
In Full: David Walker, comptroller general of the U.S., totaled up our government's income, liabilities and future obligations. He concluded the numbers don't add up. Steve Kroft reports.
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Kroft's Reporter's Notebook
Only On The Web: Steve Kroft talks about his "60 Minutes" report on America's financial future. He talked to Comptroller General David Walker, who says we may be heading for a financial crisis.
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U.S. Comptroller General David Walker (CBS)
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When the stock market soars or plunges, everyone pays attention. But short term results aren't that important to the man you're about to meet. David Walker thinks the biggest economic peril facing the nation is being ignored, and for nearly two years now he has been traveling the country like an Old Testament prophet, urging people to wake up before its too late. Who is David Walker and why should we care?
As correspondent Steve Kroft first reported earlier this year, he is the nation's top accountant, the comptroller general of the United States. He's totaled up our government's income, liabilities, and future obligations and concluded that our current standard of living is unsustainable unless some drastic action is taken. And he's not alone. It's been called the "dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows" – a set of financial truths so inconvenient that most elected officials don't even want to talk about them, which is exactly why David Walker does.
"I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility," Walker tells Kroft.
David Walker is a prudent man and a highly respected public official. As comptroller general of the United States he runs he Government Accountability Office, the GAO, which audits the government's books and serves as the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. He has more than 3,000 employees, a budget of a half a billion dollars, and a message he considers urgent.
"I'm going to show you some numbers…they’re all big and they’re all bad," he says.
So bad, that Walker has given up on elected officials and taken his message directly to taxpayers and opinion makers, hoping to shape the debate in the next presidential election.
"You know the American people, I tell you, they are absolutely starved for two things: the truth, and leadership," Walker says.
He calls it a fiscal wake up tour, and he is telling civic groups, university forums and newspaper editorial boards that the U.S. has spent, promised, and borrowed itself into such a deep hole it will be unable to climb out if it doesn’t act now. As Walker sees it, the survival of the republic is at stake.
"What’s going on right now is we’re spending more money than we make…we’re charging it to credit card…and expecting our grandchildren to pay for it. And that’s absolutely outrageous," he told the editorial board of the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
You have heard this before, from Ross Perot 15 years ago. You might have even thought the problem had been solved, when President Clinton announced, "Tonight, I come before you to announce that the federal deficit … will be simply zero."
"Well, those days are gone. We've gone from surpluses to huge deficits and our long range situation is much worse," Walker says.
"President Bush would argue that the economy is in pretty good shape, unemployment is down, the deficit is actually less than expected," Kroft remarks.
"The fact is, is that we don't face an immediate crisis. And, so people say, 'What's the problem?' The answer is, we suffer from a fiscal cancer. It is growing within us. And if we do not treat it, it could have catastrophic consequences for our country," Walker replies.
The cancer, Walker says, are massive entitlement programs we can no longer afford, exacerbated by a demographic glitch that began more than 60 years ago, a dramatic spike in the fertility rate called the "baby boom."
Produced by Andy Court
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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See all 466 CommentsIt's only a matter of time before the collection agencies start calling. (You know our dear friends in China and Saudi Arabia who like us so much it hurts!!)
Soon foreign investors will soon control our ports and own our roads too. All our manufacturing will have been exported so we can pretty much resign ourselves to being a debtor nation subservient to rich overseas interests.
So the bottom line is that the government can pay for everything by devaluating the currency and robbing you of your savings and investment. Since most of the wealth is owned by the older generation that has been around to accumulate it, that means old folks will actually finance their own benefits by losing all their equity to inflation.
So what goes around, comes around. The government will take care of the baby boomers by robbing them of everything they worked all their lives to accumulate. The younger generation that has to care for them will be paid with the elderly's assets indirectly. It all works out in the end.
Don't worry. Get old. Be happy. Die in poverty. It's the American way.
Posted by random_radar at 05:47 PM : Mar 01, 2007
That was perfect.
Some of us baby boomers feel that government has been robbing us all along. High taxes deprive us from saving enough to provide for our own comfortable retirements. The many thousands of dollars that I pay each year in federal, state and local income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and other fees could provide me with a very comfortable retirement and something to leave to future generations. Anything I receive from social security shrinks next to what I might have had if only I were allowed to save and invest the money goverment collects from me each year.
What kind of a crazy country is this. What kind of lunatics complain about health apending while paying 30 times more money for a war machine that does nothing, unless you count losing a war in stupid mode every ten years.
Let's stop fighting wars of choice and spend taxpayers money more wisely.
GLAC
Furthermore, they cure very little, comfort and dependency are their success, there 'aint no profit in a cure. Whilst they peddle dangerous junk at inflated prices, they lobby government to Ban cheap natural, unpatentable cures, throwing those who promote healthy alternatives into jail. The cost to the nation of their incestuous relationship with crooked officials is quite beyond calculation. Stop It Now !
You know what? I'm not going to fill that prescription, I'll just eat right and get a workout in once a week or so. That way, people who actually need medication, like diabetics, might have something.
The policy of tax and spend is the real cause.
How many households can go 20/30 thousand dollars deeper in debt year after year.
The people in Washington need to pay down on the debt and balance the budget.
Approximately half the taxes the government receives goes to paying interest on the debt!!!!!!!
THE CORE ISSUE IS EXAGGERATED HEALTH CARE COSTS and the Big Pharmas, not 'baby-boomers' or 'promises' or 'liberals'!!
Our government is selling all of us out, especially the pseudo-conservatives (you've been so had).
and how can anybody POSSIBLY blame CBS for what this government wack job is reporting??
Wake UP..............
You're right, the spending what you don't have goes from the personal level to the highest. Individuals have to pay down their credit cards, people have to be less materialist, and our economy can slow down the spiral.
My bills are paid, the gov. has to limit the spending. As in my house DON'T SPEND MORE THAN YOU MAKE
What do we get for that money? Are we "safer" than the UK? The UK is even fighting the same wars as us, and losing just as stupidly, with $410 billion to spare. Probably they spend it on actually improving their economy, and the health and safety of their workers which leads to greater productivity.
We look like idiots, we really do. We spend more money on absolutely nothing, actually harmful and negative thing like the war in Iraq, than most nation's entire government budget.
When will the insanity stop. Great thinkers of the past have warned us about the danger of a "standing army", which soon occupies and oppresses the host country. History is full of the lessons. I guess we're bad history students. So, yes, we will be bankrupt, and with a $470 billion army pointing guns in our faces all the while.
And if all the taxes go to paying back the debt, why more tax cuts - which have proven to have done very little to help the majority of Americans or America's own situation? Rescind the tax cuts; they will make China happier and the stocks will go back up and the US will regain some of its lost credibility. President Bush's approval rate would undoubtedly go up if he were to acknowledge this as well. I'll admit I'm naive, how will rescinding the tax cuts hurt anybody?
Everybody talks of sacrifice, but that means ALL of us. Even the top 1%. What can you do, what can I do, what can they do? Well, let's do our part to the best of our abilities. Nobody's going to stop spending anytime soon, especially if we have jobs that can afford us to spend - which is what the national economy (which is tied to the global economy) is about. Surely?
I'll continue praying for those who voted for the problems we are facing today. All I can say is, "It's not my fault."
Honest and hard working Americans are being worked over by the same corporate forces that are giving it to the rest of the world. Are we having fun yet?
GLAC
With their future on the line they'll have a lot more at stake.
So, what did Repubs do once they gained control? Raised expexnses and decreased revenue.
The US is going to become a third world nation if Americans do not wake up and demand taxes be sharply increased while curbing expenses & tax breaks for people who do not need them, such as Bill Gates & Warren Buffett, and big oil (et al big corp's).
The US is going to need a "foundation" to pay our bills in the next 20 years unless we can legalize enough immigrants to make up the shortfall.
rhg
Being a child of the depression you ARE NOT GOING TO ENJOY WHAT IS IN STORE FOR OUR NATION.
Posted by InMyOpinion
The federal government spends $30 billion a year supporting biomedical research. Those are tax dollars!
The New York Times had an excellent story this week about how drug and medical supply companies make large contributions to charitable foundations run by physicians. To the casual observer, these contributions look like kickbacks, given in exchange for doctors writing prescriptions for their products and also publishing favorable research findings.
Don't you wish that could happen?
Talk to the AARP, The gave all the answers to congress. Didn't you watch all the ads with all those pensioners listening to all the lies. ask them again' if you want
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