U.S. Comptroller General David Walker visited this newspaper last March during the Charleston stop on his "Fiscal Wake-up Tour." At that point, the federal government's total liabilities over the next 75 years — the overwhelming bulk of them in Medicare and Social Security — totaled $50 trillion. By the time he visited us Monday during a break in his Renaissance Weekend activities here, that figure had risen to $53 trillion.
Do the math: Our nation descended another $3 trillion into an ever-deepening balance-sheet hole in less than 10 months, with virtually all of that drop coming from expanding entitlement obligations.
Yet far too many Americans, including most presidential candidates, still seem to be sleeping through increasingly urgent "wake-up" calls from the comptroller general, director of Congress' auditing agency. That's why he's urging voters to ask those White House hopefuls: "What are we going to do about the $53 trillion hole?"
That growing gap represents a growing threat to our economic future — and our national security. What Mr. Walker described as the "structural imbalance" widening the gap demands fundamental reforms that will never come as long as politicians keep dodging this potentially disastrous mess.
Some more troubling numbers from the comptroller general: According to current projections, Social Security's "surpluses start to do down every year" in 2009, a trend that will produce negative cash flow by 2017 and a total tapping out of its resources by 2042. Medicare's in even worse shape, having already hit negative cash flow in 2007, with overall red ink due in 2019.
Mr. Walker warned: "The window of opportunity here is clearly less than 10 years. Time is working against us."
That will make taking on this colossal chore not just an opportunity but for the next president, who could, by winning a second term, stay in office until early 2017. So why hasn't the topic drawn much attention on the campaign trail?
Mr. Walker: "I never expected that fiscal responsibility and inter-generational equity would be an issue in the primaries. At the same time, it is absolutely essential that it play a major role in the general election."
He added this optimistic observation, gleaned from his "wake-up tour" of — so far — 25 states: "The construct that I've been talking about on the road resonates with people."
While Comp. Gen. Walker didn't endorse a presidential candidate, he did endorse this three-point plan he thinks voters should hear during the general-election campaign: "Number one, acknowledge the problem and make it a priority. Secondly, don't take anything off the table. Third, understand that any solution has to be reached on a bipartisan basis."
He also has a recommendation for the current Oval Office occupant. He said President Bush, in his final State of the Union speech on Jan. 28, should, after citing the "progress" of declining "short-term deficits" over the last three years, recognize the long-term menace to entitlement programs and endorse pending legislation that would create a bipartisan commission to address it.
Mr. Walker said Social Security, while in trouble, is not now in crisis, and can be saved — but only if necessary bipartisan action is taken in a timely manner. He's much more alarmed, however, about health-care costs, including the escalating tab for Medicare, which took on a huge new burden with the expensive prescription-drug benefit that went into effect in 2006. He urged candidates who advocate universal health care to also advocate cost-restricting regulations that end the foolhardy practice of "writing a blank check" for it.
The comptroller general deplored the irresponsibility of adults who run up big entitlement bills for future generations, calling it "taxation without representation." He said: "It's easy to spend other people's money. It's even easier to spend somebody else's money when that person can't vote."
But postponing the job of putting federal entitlements on a fiscally stable footing won't make that overdue task any easier. Mr. Walker drew this apt analogy: "We're forgetting the first rule of holes — when you're in a hole, stop digging."
And the most immediate way to stop digging of this hole is to demand that presidential candidates stop ignoring it.