IslandDog
"but you keep using the same DNC rhetoric that the country is being "destroyed", or we are all in "danger". It's total BS and you know. " This is what The head of the GAO who is the Comptroller General is saying. Here are some of his statements:
"I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility," Walker tells Kroft.
David Walker is a prudent man and a highly respected public official. As comptroller general of the United States he runs he Government Accountability Office, the GAO, which audits the government's books and serves as the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. He has more than 3,000 employees, a budget of a half a billion dollars, and a message he considers urgent.
The fact is, is that we don't face an immediate crisis. And, so people say, 'What's the problem?' The answer is, we suffer from a fiscal cancer. It is growing within us. And if we do not treat it, it could have catastrophic consequences for our country," Walker replies.
The problem with Medicare, Walker says, is people keep living longer, and medical costs keep rising at twice the rate of inflation. But instead of dealing with the problem, he says, the president and the Congress made things much worse just three years ago when they expanded the Medicare program to include prescription drug coverage. "The prescription drug bill was probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s," Walker argues.
You are one of the people who wants to ignore the treality that Mr. Warker is talkibg about. Here is Mr. Walker's statement in 2004 before Bush added another Trillion Dollars to the National Debt:
There is a crisis, and it's George W. Bush's misplaced priorities, fiscal mismanagement, expensive wars, and tax cuts for the rich. Bush will talk tomorrow night about how he's on track to halve the deficit - but it's lies, smoke and mirrors. Since Bush said he would halve the debt it was $554 Billion in 2005 and $574 Billion in 2006. So far in 2007 it is running even higher then in 2006. HOW is that cutting the debt in half? Just like Mr. Walker said, "SMOKE AND MIRRORS"
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke validated much of Walker's take on the situation at congressional hearings this year, and so did ranking Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee. Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota is the Chairman.
