They were a coincidence, but a couple of events last week together provided stark reminders of the financial perils we and future generations of Americans face.

One was a visit to Madison by the so-called Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, which consists of representatives from the U.S. Comptroller General's Office, the Concord Coalition, the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation — an eclectic group representing the full political spectrum.

Its message? That the United States is in even worse shape financially than we believe and that if we don't get our collective act together within the next 10 years or so, our economy is in danger of collapsing. And it won't be because of us, but what other countries will do.

We're already spending $400 million more each year than we bring in, and we've got increased Social Security and Medicare costs ahead of us as the baby boomers retire, the group told audiences at the Downtown Rotary Club and elsewhere in the city.

The other event was the release of a new book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz that sets the true cost to American taxpayers of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars at $3 trillion.

Stiglitz's book details the costs, everything from medical bills to permanent disability payments for our soldiers, from equipment replacement to the price tags for rebuilding infrastructure.

Not included is interest on the debt we're incurring because of the war and the enormous costs for rebuilding the military, if and when we finally leave Iraq. Some predict those costs will add another $2 trillion or $3 trillion to the costs.

Put those two messages together, and it becomes quickly apparent that a huge impediment to fixing our own financial house is this insane war that is draining our already endangered economy. We should be making plans to meet the future costs of Social Security, Medicare and our infrastructure and finding a way to make sure all Americans get health care. Instead, this administration is determined to continue a war that has already dragged on for five long years and, far from making the country safer, has actually made the world we live in more dangerous.

Instead of tracking down Osama bin Laden and his band of terrorists as we should have done from the get-go, our president has led us down a course that must be beyond bin Laden's wildest dreams. What better way to get his enemy, the USA, than by destroying its economy?