Facing Facts about
America’s True
Financial Condition
and Fiscal Outlook
The Outlook is Grim and Will Get Worse Unless We Act Soon
by David M. Walker
David M. Walker is the
Comptroller General of the
United States, the nation’s chief
accountability officer, and head
of the U.S. General Accounting
Office (GAO), a legislative
branch agency. Previously, he
worked at Arthur Andersen,
LLP, where he was a partner
and global managing director of the human capital services practice based in Atlanta,
GA. He was also a member of the board of Arthur
Andersen Financial Advisors, a registered investment
advisor. While a partner at Arthur Andersen, he served as
a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare. He
also served as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Pension
and Welfare Benefit Programs and as Acting Executive
Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
His earlier technical, professional, and business experience
was with Price Waterhouse, Coopers & Lybrand and
Source Services Corporation, an international human
resources consulting and search firm. A certified public
accountant, Mr. Walker has a BS degree in accounting
from Jacksonville University.
In addition to external security threats, America is
threatened from within by growing fiscal imbalances.
The combination of entitlement programs, demographics,
and rising health care costs create the need to make
choices that will only become more difficult the longer
they are postponed. The difficulty of making such choices
is magnified by inadequate information, unfunded commitments
being an especially important example. Truth
and transparency in government financial reporting is
badly needed, and the public must be made aware of the
magnitude of the problems that will be imposed by everincreasing
fiscal imbalances and must demand change.
by David M. Walker