According to the Financial Times.
The U.S. 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.
David Walker, comptroller general of the U.S.,issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called chilling long-term simulations. These include dramatic tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of U.S. debt.
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 overconfident and overextended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.
Very chilling indeed!
Before you start thinking that David Walker is some crackpot lunatic, here’s his bio straight off the US Government Accountability Office website.
As Comptroller General, Mr. Walker is the nation’s chief accountability officer and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), a legislative branch agency founded in 1921. GAO’s mission is to help improve the performance and assure the accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people. Over the years, GAO has earned a reputation for professional, objective, fact-based, and nonpartisan reviews of government issues and operations.
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