GAO Chief to America: We're Broke

America's chief accountant has a message to the American people, and it's urgent: America is fast running out of cash, and its bills are mounting. At his latest stop on the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, Comptroller General David M. Walker delivered what has become a common refrain for him.

"If we continue our policies without change, we will be completely bankrupt as a nation," he told members of the public at the Citadel in Charleston.

At issue here is the current structure of entitlement programs, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. When originally implemented, the programs were designed to protect senior Americans and low-income people by providing medical care, retirement benefits and other services. But the price tag associated with the care has been rising over the years at a rate faster than taxable incomes, and the Baby Boomer generation, America's largest living generation, is getting ready to retire. Already, the combined costs of the big three entitlement programs is 40% of the federal budget.

While many people are screaming about the cost of the global war on terror, and in specific about the cost of the Iraq campaign, Walker says that not enough attention is being focused on the real culprit for national financial failure. Without massive changes in entitlement programs and structures, he warns, the nation's debt load will continue to grow at an ever-increasing rate. But the number of politicians who have listened to Walker is discouragingly small.

"It's a quick route to political suicide," comments Brian Richardson, a policy analyst for a liberal think-tank. "Any time you start talking entitlement reform, you start running the risk of irritating some of the biggest lobbies on the Hill. Especially when you are in the House, and your time in office is depressingly short, there's quite a lot of incentive to leave well enough alone."