Panel calls for national fiscal wakeup

With economic turmoil in the headlines, panelists at the Fiscal Wake-Up tour in Houston Hall on Tuesday told the tale of a potential greater crisis in the near future - one in which the entire American standard of living could be at stake.

Panelists included Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition; Stuart Butler, vice-president of domestic and economic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation; Alice Rivlin, director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution and David Walker, president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

The group was brought to campus by Concerned Youth of America in conjunction with the Concord Coalition. Political Science professor Donald Kettl moderated the presentation.

Walker is the leader of the bipartisan panel that is traveling the nation to educate people about the country's long-term fiscal challenges.

The group argued that the governmental spending is out of control. The panel said it believes that, by using a grassroots approach to stimulate local politics, Washington will be forced to act.

Presenting the information with charts and statistics, the panel said the budget deficit is growing at a rate of 2.5 percent per year. If divided among Americans, each person in the country would owe $175,000.

The overall debt is nearly $8 trillion and about half of that is owed to foreign investors.

Meanwhile, the panelists claimed that the consumerist mentality is not making the picture better, as Americans are virtually saving nothing.

While addressing the issues of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the panel said that, as baby boomers retire and the American workforce shrinks, the size of these three mandatory costs could appropriate the entire federal budget if spending is not re-allocated and taxes stay below historical levels.

According to the panel, the question is not if, but when, there will be a larger crisis.

Either through sky-high taxes or cutting down on discretionary programs, such as those that focus on education, technology and infrastructure, this debt will to have to be financed, they said.

"We are mortgaging our children's futures," Walker said.

He added that the American standard of living is at risk, unless the government is held accountable for the way it manages its finances.

In 2001, President Clinton's pay-as-you-go economics managed to produce an economic surplus, and the panel asserted that Americans still have time to demand leadership.

The panel suggested that citizens demand that candidates not wait for the crisis but be open about their perspectives on health care and social security funding, the budget deficit and the essential programs that must be replaced in order to achieve smarter economics.

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