The U.S. government is bankrupt and headed towards economic disaster.
So says no less an authority than David Walker, head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is a government agency that audits and evaluates the federal government. Walker is, essentially, the government's chief accountant.
And the story Walker is trying to get Americans to hear and understand is a frightening one.
According to Walker, unless the federal government halts and reverses current policies, the national debt -- already $8.5 trillion -- could reach $46 trillion or more in the next few decades. That is almost the total net worth of every person in America.
According to some estimates, just the interest payments alone on a debt that size would take all the tax revenue the government collects today.
Walker further notes that the problem is growing by $2 trillion to $3 trillion every year.
The major culprits: America's three biggest and bloated entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. When the aging baby boomer generation begins retiring in mass numbers in a few years, the costs of those programs will explode.
To avoid a financial disaster, Walker says, government will have to take extremely painful and unpopular actions: raising taxes (boo!) and/or slashing spending and reducing or eliminating programs and promised benefits. Otherwise the country faces possible economic collapse.
Meanwhile, the Democratic and Republican mega-spenders who got us into this fiscal nightmare won't even talk about it publicly, because it's not a "sexy" campaign issue -- and perhaps because it so totally discredits their policies and promises.
Conservative and liberal politicians have blown it. They've bankrupted America, and now they're keeping it quiet. Only libertarians have the answers, and the political will, to make the changes necessary to save the country from a financial meltdown.
Can libertarians convince the public of that -- in time to avoid the financial tidal wave?
So says no less an authority than David Walker, head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is a government agency that audits and evaluates the federal government. Walker is, essentially, the government's chief accountant.
And the story Walker is trying to get Americans to hear and understand is a frightening one.
According to Walker, unless the federal government halts and reverses current policies, the national debt -- already $8.5 trillion -- could reach $46 trillion or more in the next few decades. That is almost the total net worth of every person in America.
According to some estimates, just the interest payments alone on a debt that size would take all the tax revenue the government collects today.
Walker further notes that the problem is growing by $2 trillion to $3 trillion every year.
The major culprits: America's three biggest and bloated entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. When the aging baby boomer generation begins retiring in mass numbers in a few years, the costs of those programs will explode.
To avoid a financial disaster, Walker says, government will have to take extremely painful and unpopular actions: raising taxes (boo!) and/or slashing spending and reducing or eliminating programs and promised benefits. Otherwise the country faces possible economic collapse.
Meanwhile, the Democratic and Republican mega-spenders who got us into this fiscal nightmare won't even talk about it publicly, because it's not a "sexy" campaign issue -- and perhaps because it so totally discredits their policies and promises.
Conservative and liberal politicians have blown it. They've bankrupted America, and now they're keeping it quiet. Only libertarians have the answers, and the political will, to make the changes necessary to save the country from a financial meltdown.
Can libertarians convince the public of that -- in time to avoid the financial tidal wave?
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