Quotes are from the Wall Street Journal story[9/4/09] based on an interview of Mr. Walker by John Fund, the author.
David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States and now President of the Peterson Foundation defines our United States deficits:
"We have four deficits: a budget deficit, a savings deficit, a value-of-the-dollar deficit and a leadership deficit." "We are treating the symptoms of those deficits, but not the disease."
In my view, the leadership deficit is overarching, long term and responsible for the other three. We need people [not politicians] in our nation who are proven leaders to step up and run for office. Somehow we voters must find a way to derail traditional politics that has produced our dysfunctional, partisan Congress who often demonstrate that they do not have the best interests of our nation as their prime motivator for serving.
"Mr. Walker identifies the disease as having a basic cause: "Washington is totally out of touch and out of control," he (Walker) sighs. "There is political courage there, but there is far more political careerism and people dodging real solutions." He identifies entrenched incumbency as a real obstacle to change."
5 comments:
There seems to be a very hard fact that needs to be faced on this issue:
"the deficit generally increases under Republican Presidents"...
I can't relocated the particular chart I had which shows this so well, but a quick search turned up this chart,
http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html
The deficits matter and must be corrected.
But to suggest that Obama doesn't care to reduce the deficit, like a good democrat, or that he doesn't have the ability to lead this change, seems to miss the core problem here:
The Republicans blow the effort to have budget surpluses almost every time.
It's a most ironic fact!
No?
I am a non-partisan!
I don't know if the same applies to Vermont state government.
BIG government runs BIG operating deficits and adds to the debt, regardless of the party in power at the federal level.
Vermont does not run budget deficits. There is no constitutional requirement to do so, but our legislature has wisely seen fit to always balance the budget. Vermont does have debt, but it is bonded debt that generally represents capital improvements in infrastructure. We are fortunate not to have operating deficits that become debt as the federal government does year after year after year.
Didn't the federal budget run into a surplus during the Clinton
presidency? Under Bush, it ballooned out of all proportions. Obama
happens to enter the picture facing Bush's deficit legacy AND a
serious economic downturn, which normally requires governmental
stimulus policies. What I'm saying is that democrats in Washington
have a much better record with the Federal Budget than Republicans.
No?
During the boom time in the economy in a couple of the Clinton years the U.S ran a surplus. I remeber seeing the chart you had that showed bigger deficits under Republican than Democrat Presidents.
You may well be right and I have as much disdain for "R" deficits as "D" deficits. Nevertheless, the present $1.5 TRILLION deficit expected this year is unprecedented. The U.S. has a spending problem.
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