Name any of the really big threats our nation faces and you're bound to find a large number of respected people who will argue that it's really no big deal. But there is one exception; one scenario we face that virtually every expert agrees could bring America to its knees. And the Real Story is that this scenario is already starting to play out, and no one from the political realm wants to even address it.
One week ago today the first baby boomers became eligible for early retirement under Social Security. And over the next 20 years, another 78 million Americans will join them. The result is that every single household in America essentially now owes over four hundred thousand dollars each, just to finance Social Security and Medicare. Don't have four hundred thousand in cash sitting around? Well you're not alone -- and that's exactly the problem...our country is technically bankrupt.
Politicians try to confuse you with all sorts of complicated numbers and formulas about our financial future, but it's actually very simple: our government has promised far more money than it actually has or probably will ever have. USA Today calculated that we would need to stash away $58 TRILLION -- yes, trillion -- dollars RIGHT NOW in order to generate enough interest to pay for our future obligations. You may or may not have heard that are current investments total approximately zero dollars because, unlike Al Gore's stump speech, there is no "lockbox."
Now, I'm probably a lot like you when it comes to this stuff; it puts me to sleep too, but what really woke me up is something called the "menu of delayed pain." This basically shows the options that we have to pay for our future debts. For example, if we acted back in 2003, we could've fixed everything by raising payroll taxes by 95%. Not pretty, but now in 2008, because of compounding interest, we'd have to raise them by 103%! And the other options you see there in the right hand column aren't much better -- unless you happen to enjoy paying 74% more in federal income tax.
Unfortunately, the American people never got to see those numbers because they were pulled out of the 2004 budget just a few days after then Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill -- who had ordered the analysis -- was fired. And why were they pulled? It's simple; because our leaders in both parties believe that we can't handle the truth. Well they're wrong. What we can't handle are leaders who refuse to tell the truth. So tonight, I want to introduce you to someone different; someone who has no political stake in the game. He's not about left or right, he's about right and wrong. He's the head of the Government Accountability Office -- the GAO-- which makes him our nation's top accountant, and while it's not typical for someone in his position to speak out, he's now saying enough is enough and he's bringing his wake-up call directly to the American people.
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