Unsustainable America (Follow-up)

Blog before last, I linked to an article in the Financial Times. The article spoke of warnings by the US Comptroller General, David Walker, about the unsustainability of America. Here’s the link again: Learn From The Fall of Rome, US Warned

A reader of this blog send me an e-mail and wrote the following (which I am sharing here with his permission):


I spent 7 years working for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Washington, D.C--the agency headed by the Comptroller General of the U.S. (You linked to an article by the Comptroller in your latest blog entry.) I can tell you first-hand that everything in the article is true. The fiscal situation of this nation is very serious. In my time at GAO, I worked on the audit of the national debt which is currently about $9 trillion! However, that is not a true picture of the debt. When you include unfunded entitlements (e.g. Social Security, military and civilian retirement) the national debt is actually about $50 trillion or $170,000 per capita! Your analogy of the freight train in your last blog entry is appropriate. I'm just surprised that it hasn't derailed already! So I understand the urgency of getting off the train while I still can. For several years now, my desire has been to live an agrarian lifestyle and reduce my dependence on our industrialized society.

3 comments:

kabri said...

Hi Kerrick I was unable to access the link, can you post it again? Thanks!

Herrick Kimball said...

Hi Kabri

Sorry about that. It should work now.

Anonymous said...

Herrick;

I have come to the opinion that this is why Congress and the President are trying so very hard to grant citizenship to the 12-20 million illegal aliens. While I believe that there are lobbing groups out there calling for the citizenship like big agro and the various Christian churches for their own particular basis, nevertheless, the central reason is to infuse this country with more “tax” paying individuals. They know in Washington that our budget and social security is a sinking ship. They are not telling us we have hit the iceberg and we are going down and in doing so are pulling the wool over our eyes by trying to get these folks citizenship.

The whole citizenship/illegal immigration issue could be fixed in about 5-10 years through a series of moderate measures. Yet they choose to give citizenship in one full swoop…look for the money or in this case the lack there of.

I would add that I harbor no grudge toward these people; they are seeking a better life. The problem is with immoral Americans that perpetuate the problem and deceive the American people; and the same that choose to put their heads in the sand hoping the problem will go away.

Regards,
BD