Four representatives from the Concord Coalition Fiscal Wake-Up Tour met Wednesday at Smith Hall to explain to students the magnitude of the current U.S. budget crisis.
Comptroller General of the United States David Walker, and representatives from the Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institution and the Concord Coalition were present at the event.
According to Walker, foreign nations as well as citizens of the U.S. have loaned the U.S. government substantial amounts of money in the form of bonds. The current budget deficit exceeds $53 trillion.
“Basically, we’re spending a lot more money than we’re taking in,” said Walker. “It’s going to get a lot worse in the next few years.”
The 77 million individuals in the baby boomer generation are going to retire over the next 20 years, which means they will be collecting social security, Brian Riedl said, representative for the Heritage Foundation.
“If we were to raise taxes to pay for just what we’ve promised our parents and grandparents, we would have to permanently raise taxes by the equivalent of $12,000 dollars per household,” Riedl said.
Paul Cullinan, representative for the Brookings Institution, said it is imperative that the government begins to consider ways to restructure programs such as Social Security and Medicaid. By revising these programs, the government may formulate solutions so it “can actually plan to support them in some logical way” in the future, he said.
According to Bob Bixley, representative of the Concord Coalition, since there is not an easy solution to the budget crisis, presidential candidates refrain from addressing the issue.
“The short answer is politicians don’t want to talk about it,” said Riedl. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions out there.”
One way to combat this issue, according to Bixley, is for the younger generation to become more politically active. That way, it will be possible to make the budget crisis an issue that is impossible not to address, Bixley said.
“Your generation is going to get the bill with compound interest,” Walker said.
The group also spoke at a Distinguished Lecture Series in Memorial Union Wednesday night.
