Birmingham born and Jax State educated, David Walker seems like one we ought to be proud of. I noted a recent Mobile P-R piece titled Nation's future threatened, Alabama native says. Even back at the first of the year your sister paper the B'ham News was covering what then GAO Comptroller General Walker was telling us. This YouTube of a 60 Minutes interview gives us even further coverage of this Alabama native. M P-R, is this really "breaking news"?The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, with Mr. Walker serving as its first President and CEO, might indeed be a solid effort yet like Ian Welsh at FDL I wonder why this effort being rolled out now. Ian's A Billion Dollars to Stop Democrats From Running Deficits Like Republicans Did is dead on, as is his point about the perils of dumping Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in the same pile for analysis. The math looks a whole lot sexier but it isn't necessary to show a problem is looming.
I mentioned back in February that I was reading Robert Reich's Locked in the Cabinet and yet I'd not gotten to the point in the story where Slick Willy was pressed by Uncle Alan Greenspan to put deficit reductions ahead of his promises to invest in America's future. After twelve years of Voodoo Economics, B, as Reich labels him in the book, had Wall Street and others press him to pay off the debt run up by the GOP. He triangulated his way through Newt's Contract on America. Still, President Clinton got our fiscal house rather in order.
Assuming Senator Obama is elected, and once again I've long figured him as a Centrist that could talk Progressivism, then I expect history will once again be repeated. The disasters that Dubyah and his Rubber Stamp Congress has brought us will create many hurdles for the next occupant of the White House, likely not just one or two I fear, yet fiscal challenges will rank at the top of the list. Programs that can make a difference for Americans now and into the future may well be sacrificed as they were in the Clinton years.
I remain very supportive of universal health care, a blend of what Germany and France has making lots of sense to me, and would like to think some solutions lay here. I also want to see a Progressive tax code return where the rich get soaked ... or at least a little wet. Good government is required and the GOP reliably beats up on gov't, winning elections it seems often on conditions they've helped create. Centrist weenie Democrats like the DLC types are often in the corporations' pockets to boot. The remedies are complex and fraught with peril for a politician or party to tackle. Yet we must have leadership. I do hope David Walker is part of the solution rather than having his work used by pandering politicians. John Gunn
UPDATE ~ October 19, 2008 - Yup! Walker: Now that the Rich Have Their Bailout Time To Stop Spending So Much from Ian Welsh answers the question.
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