A Wisconsin State Journal editorial
No, it's not the war in Iraq or the entire defense budget. They barely scratch the surface.
No, it's not the wasteful, pork-barrel spending, which is out of control yet only a tiny sliver of expenditures.
It's not even the $400 billion annual federal budget deficit or the more than $9 trillion in federal debt.
"The really big problem is that we are on the verge of a demographic transformation to an older society, " said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group pushing for fiscal sanity in government.
Bixby was one of four speakers who spoke in Madison on Wednesday as part of a Fiscal Wake-up Tour this election year. Bixby was joined by David Walker, head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, as well as representatives from the liberal Brookings Institution and the conservative Heritage Foundation.
The diverse group highlighted the country 's three major entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- as key to avoiding financial ruin in the future.
Wisconsin 's congressional delegation and the next president need to pay attention and start talking in an honest way about concrete steps toward a solution.
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid already consume 42 percent of the federal budget -- and the baby boomers have just begun to retire, Bixby noted ominously.
Walker, who has headed the Accountability Office for nearly a decade, said total liabilities of unfunded promises for Social Security and Medicare have more than doubled, from $20 trillion to $53 trillion, in just seven years.
Then Walker offered a stunning figure: the $53 trillion breaks down to $175,000 for every man, woman and child -- "including the newest newborn, " he said. "No wonder newborn babies cry. "
To avoid bankruptcy, America needs to cut these benefits or increase payroll taxes -- two options most politicians are afraid to even utter. Yet nothing short of an overhaul of popular entitlement programs is required.
Every year that our leaders in Washington, D.C., continue to ignore this looming financial crisis, the harder it will be to solve. And the longer we as citizens have to wait for action, the more we can expect to face higher payroll taxes and deeper benefit cuts.
The Fiscal Wake-up Tour that rolled through Madison last week should jar south-central Wisconsin to action. Citizens don 't call the shots in Washington, D.C., but we do send leaders there to represent us.
It's time for Wisconsin voters to shake their candidates for Congress and president this fall until they finally snap out of their fiscally-irresponsible slumber.