Americans would do well to readjust their financial investments and long term goals in preparation for the economic realities envisioned by US’s head accountant, David Walker. Walker is the highly respected head of the General Accountability Office, or GAO, He issued a dire warning when he appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes last Sunday (March 4, ’07). He stated that a far greater threat than “a man hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan’, is our own fiscal irresponsibility." Walker, whose job is to audit the government’s books, has concluded that we are heading for a serious financial meltdown, a “dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows”. Politicians are ignoring the inconvenient truth lest they get tainted with recommending unpopular remedies such as raising taxes and/or trimming back entitlements.
Walker is now on a cross country ‘fiscal wakeup’ crusade hoping to stir up the citizenry to pressure politicians to take remedial action to save our ship of state from bankruptcy. He warns of a lack of leadership and truth telling intended to lull our people into a deep slumber and continued delusion of our financial well-being. But, a far greater threat than the obscene Defense budget and our penchant for waging wars, is the massive entitlement programs which if left unchecked will most surely cripple us financially. 60 years ago, an important demographic change occurred with an upward shift in the nation’s fertility rate spawning a ‘baby boom’ generation. These boomers will be receiving their first entitlement checks beginning January 2008 when 78 million Americans will be become ‘dependents’ of the US taxpayers. Just 3 years later, the massive new entitlement of Medicare will ‘kick in’. With medical costs rising at twice the rate of inflation, the system is unsustainable. This will serve as a death knell for all other government programs such as national defense (more appropriately call the ‘national war’ department). homeland security, education etc. The only silver lining in this doomsday scenario, is the decline of US hegemony which should usher in a period of relative global calm. No longer will the US be able to flex its economic muscle and military might to force nations to bend to its imperial will. Furthermore, the welfare checks to repressive governments, such as Egypt, Jordon, Pakistan and Israel will cease and the citizens of this country will be forced to adjust to a much lower living standard. Social unrest may well result during this period of economic adjustment.
No comments:
Post a Comment