US Warned: Learn from the Fall Of Rome
by Jeff Davis
A recent opinion article reports “The US government is on a burning platform of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic health care underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned…These include dramatic\ tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt…Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an unsustainable path.”
Sounds like some paranoid right-winger pounding on his computer keyboard, right? But actually, no. These comments appeared in the highly respected Financial Times of London, the British equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. And the man making these statements is David Walker, Comptroller General of the U.S. (Our head bureaucrat, so to speak.) The Financial Times tells us that Walker “…Issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called chilling long-term simulations….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.”
The same article continues “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. ‘…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 health care costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks,’ said Mr Walker…’Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernize everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.’ ”
So–they’re not all totally blind and stupid at the top of the political food chain. Some of those guys in suits in Washington CAN see what’s going on, and at least one of them has the courage to step up to the plate and say out loud what everyone living in this country knows–that America is swirling around the toilet bowl and about to go down. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to this guy Walker after he’s blown the whistle, 15-year term or not.