America’s accountant on the “Fiscal Responsibility” roadshow

David M. Walker is the head of the General Accounting Office and he’s setting up the evangelical tent to convince Americans that the crush of entitlements will bankrupt the government. From MSNBC: “Fiscal roadshow warns of trouble ahead”

Walker doesn’t want to make balancing the federal government’s books sexy — he just wants to make it politically palatable. He has committed to touring the nation through the 2008 elections, talking to anybody who will listen about the fiscal black hole Washington has dug itself, the “demographic tsunami” that will come when the baby boom generation begins retiring and the recklessness of borrowing money from foreign lenders to pay for the operation of the U.S. government.

He’s dubbed his campaign the fiscal wake-up tour.

Here come the scary numbers:

Their basic message is this: If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation.

A hole that big could paralyze the U.S. economy; according to some projections, just the interest payments on a debt that big would be as much as all the taxes the government collects today.

And every year that nothing is done about it, Walker says, the problem grows by $2 trillion to $3 trillion.

What we’re essentially doing by ignoring the entitlement problem is giving quiet approval to Chinese ownership of America since they would be lending us the cash to pay for Medicare and Social Security.