By Scott Brooks
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff
"Whoever the next President is has got to make fiscal sustainability a priority issue," U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker said yesterday in a presentation at the New Hampshire Union Leader building. "And if they don't, we're in trouble."
Walker, who heads the U.S. Government Accountability Office, was one of several officials and analysts in New Hampshire yesterday to warn the public about a looming crisis that threatens the nation's economic health.
Their campaign is called the "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour."
"None of us is running for President, but there are lot of people coming through this state who are," said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that promotes fiscal responsibility.
"And we feel one of the criteria for judging the nominees, whether it's Democrats or Republicans, needs to be whether they have thought about these issues. Are they aware of them, and do they have a strategy for dealing with them?"
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid already comprise 40 percent of the federal budget, and their costs are rising as the baby boomers age, members of the coalition say.
If unchecked, they say, that growth will burden the U.S. with heavy debt and force future generations to endure painful benefit cuts or steep tax increases.
The crisis may not be apparent today.
No one can say when it will hit, the coalition concedes.
When it does, members say, Americans will face lower-paying jobs, a slower economy and higher interest rates.
"It's not a wolf at the door," said Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "It's termites in the woodwork."