
GAO Report: Federal Fiscal Policy Remains Unsustainable
• U.S. Government Accountability OfficeGAO says: "To close the fiscal gap under Baseline Extended would require action today equal to about a 23 percent increase in revenue or reduction in programmatic spending. . ."Under our Alternative simulation [much more realistic], waiting
In 2005, U.S. Comptroller General David Walker published his first report saying it was far worse than the public was being led to believe. The debt with everything included (including some $29 million in promised Social Security and Medicare payments that were going to start coming due) was $46.4 trillion. About the same time another study came out to say if we literally put every inch of land "owned" by the US government including any buildings and the property (office equipment, cars, etc.) on the auction block it would only raise $5 trillion. We were Sooooooooo screwed.
Meanwhile those fiscally conservative Republicans had been hard at work in their 11th and 12th years in CONtrol of the federal government. My opponent had cheerfully continued to spend $2 trillion annually running up the federal credit card for our great grand children to pay off.
In 2006 I ran again, with the same platform only bolstered with data from the Comptroller General I ran a more personal 'save yourselves, because your government will collapse' theme.
David Walker has every year gone around trying to warn his countrymen of their impending economic disaster. Mainly ignored. God bless him. A good man in government.