Ann McFeaters, Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, PA): The U.S.
comptroller general, David Walker, laid out a
blistering attack on the nation's growing deficit
yesterday, saying it is undermining the future of the
nation and putting an all-but-intolerable tax burden
on future generations.
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http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04023/264717.stm
Top fiscal watchdog delivers stinging attack on deficit
Friday, January 23, 2004
By Ann McFeatters, Post-Gazette National Bureau
WASHINGTON --The U.S. comptroller general, David
Walker, laid out a blistering attack on the nation's
growing deficit yesterday, saying it is undermining
the future of the nation and putting an
all-but-intolerable tax burden on future generations.
"The path we're on is imprudent and unsustainable,''
he said.
Walker, a balding, meticulously dressed man whose
background is as a certified public accountant, does
not look like a rabble rouser. But that's what he has
become.
In a session with reporters, Walker, who also heads
the General Accounting Office, the non-partisan
watchdog arm of Congress, said he has become convinced
that neither the Bush administration nor members of
Congress nor the public understand how serious a
problem the nation's public debt and rising deficit
are becoming.
Entitlement programs such as Medicare have grown out
of control, he said, and the base spending of the
government must be overhauled.
Some popular programs are not just growing insolvent,
but are not going to be sustainable, he said. The new
prescription drug coverage for seniors through
Medicare will cost $8 trillion for the next 75 years,
costing every man, woman and child $25,000, he said.
That's in addition to $18 trillion that Medicare will
cost over that period.
He also predicted that the benefits being offered in
the new drug program, which takes full effect in 2006,
will disappoint so many people that Congress will be
pressured to make it more extensive and thus even
costlier.
Although Walker said that making President Bush's tax
cuts permanent, as he demanded in his State of the
Union speech Tuesday, would be more expensive than
anyone has publicly stated, he insisted that his
comments were not intended to be political. He only
sought to sound a "wake-up-call,'' he said. "All major
tax proposals need to be examined carefully,'' he
said.
Asked about Vice President Dick Cheney's remark --
reported by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill,
whom Cheney had fired -- that deficits do not matter,
Walker said Cheney may believe that deficits don't
matter politically, but that the vice president can't
possibly believe that they don't matter for the
economy.
"Deficits do matter -- especially when they are large,
structural and growing,'' Walker said.
The nation now has a total debt of $7 trillion -- $4
trillion of it held by the public or foreign investors
-- and is expected to have a record deficit this year
of $500 billion.
If foreign investors decide that they don't want to
hold U.S. debt anymore, it could be catastrophic, he
said.
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
earlier this month conducted a poll which found that
half of those surveyed said the deficit should be a
top national priority, up from 40 percent a year ago.
Democrats in particular were concerned.
The administration of President Ronald Reagan produced
significant deficits, and they didn't hurt his
political career. But Walker said the mechanics that
eventually reduced the deficits in the 1990s are gone
now. And he said that even when surpluses were
"projected" in the 1990s, there were still long-term
deficits forecast.
Walker said there is "low-hanging fruit" everywhere,
meaning that there are dozens of federal programs that
could be cut or axed. Dozens of programs created in
the 1940s and '50s have never been subject to
re-evaluation or reassessment, he said. And there are
"billions" of dollars in the defense budget listed as
"miscellaneous,'' he said.
When Bush promises to reduce the deficit by half
within five years, Walker said, the president's
projections are "only as good as the assumptions that
underlie them.'' In five years, should Bush be
re-elected in November, he will be leaving office,
Walker said. "It's absolutely critical to consider
where we'll be in 10 years'' with current spending
levels, he said.
On the Democratic side, he said, none of the figures
cited by those seeking the party's presidential
nomination add up. Even those contenders calling for
repeal of Bush's tax cuts have ideas about where they
want to spend the money, he said.