I have been fighting for federal fiscal sanity and sustainability for over thirty years from various positions on the battlefield. It started when fellow Social Security and Medicare Public Trustee Stan Ross and I issued the first Public Trustee’s Report in the early 1990s noting that these important social insurance programs were unsustainable in their present form.
In 1998, President Clinton nominated me, and the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed me as the seventh Comptroller General of the United States and CEO of the GAO. The federal government had surpluses in Fiscal 1998-2001 and reduced debt held by the public in two of those years. In early 2001, CBO projected that the federal government was on a path the eliminate all federal debt held by the public and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve was worried about it. I knew better given our political process which consistently promotes more spending and lower taxes.
By 2003 it became clear to me that the Congress and the President had lost their fiscal bearings, and I included an emphasis paragraph in the consolidated annual audit report of the federal government. That paragraph noted that the federal government was on an unsustainable fiscal path and that substantive spending and tax reforms were needed.
From 2008 through 2013 I served as CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and the Comeback America Initiative. Both non-profits were dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility and government transformation. Since then, I have continued to state the facts, speak the truth, and show a way forward as a speaker, author, professor, and member of various government and non-profit boards and advisory groups, including the Defense Business Board and the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation. Over time, I have engaged in citizen education and engagement efforts in forty-seven states, DC, and two U.S. territories. Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker called me the Paul Revere of Fiscal Responsibility, but this Paul is getting tired of not seeing progress in the face of our rapidly growing federal financial sinkhole.
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Since Fiscal 2000, the federal government has gone from current and projected surpluses with the possibility of paying off all federal debt, to huge and growing deficits and rapidly mounting debt burdens. For example, debt subject to the debt ceiling has gone from $5.7 trillion in 2000 to over $34 trillion today and is growing rapidly. Our fastest growing expense today is interest for which we get nothing, and total interest expense now exceeds our defense budget.
The last fiscally responsible President was Bill Clinton who worked with Speaker Newt Gingrich and others on a bipartisan basis to constrain the growth of government and engage in needed reforms. The late Ross Perot deserves a lot of credit for this since he focused on fiscal responsibility in his 1992 and 1996 Presidential campaigns.
It is now clear that there is not a party of fiscal responsibility, and no President since Clinton has provided the leadership needed to facilitate needed reforms even though there is broad-based agreement that the status quo is both unacceptable and unsustainable. We are mortgaging the future of our country, children, grandchildren, and future generations at record rates. This is irresponsible, unethical, immoral, and un-American.
As I testified in March 2023 before the House Budget Committee, three concrete steps are needed now to put the U.S. on a more prudent fiscal path.
First, spending for Fiscal 2024 needs to be cut from the bloated levels of Fiscal 2022 and 2023. Shockingly. Congress has still not passed the Fiscal 2024 appropriations even though we are over five months into the fiscal year. Second, Congress needs to pass the House Fiscal Commission Act to engage the American people with the facts, truth, and tough choices and make a package of fiscal reform recommendations that will be guaranteed an up or down vote in Congress. Third, Congress needs to propose a Fiscal Responsibility Amendment that constrains the growth of the federal government and will reduce and stabilize federal debt/GDP level to a reasonable and sustainable level. In this regard, the House Judiciary Committee also needs to hold a hearing on HCR 24 which notes that the Congress is delinquent in discharging its express, enumerated, and ministerial responsibility under Article V of the Constitution to call a Convention of States to propose such an amendment when two-thirds of the states have asked for one. That threshold was passed in 1979 and yet Congress failed to act. Since then, total federal debt has increased from less than one trillion dollars to over $34 trillion and the value of the dollar has declined by about 80%! If Congress fails to act, several states have noted their willingness to act to assert their Constitutional right.
It is time for truth, transparency, and transformation. The President and the Congress need to take steps to address our deteriorating financial condition which represents a huge threat to our future economic security, national security, international standing, and domestic tranquility. The fuse on the debt bomb is getting short. It is time for results rather than rhetoric!
Hon. David M. Walker is the Former U.S. Comptroller General and Board Member of the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation
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