Column: The national debt, our $10 million-a-minute problem

History might be repeating itself.

Twenty years ago, the presidential campaign was largely focused on the economy, jobs and fiscal responsibility. The key issues in 1992 included how to get the economy growing faster, how to ensure free but fair trade, how to address current and projected deficits and debt burdens, and how best to address the declining trust in government and confidence in the future.

In 2012, we find ourselves in a strikingly similar position. Today, trade policy and currency practices are still a matter of concern and controversy. Even more important, economic growth is weak, federal deficits and debt burdens have grown dramatically, and the public's opinion of government and confidence in the future are near all-time lows. All this at a time when the United States faces a range of serious sustainability challenges that threaten our future position in the world, our future standard of living at home, our long-term national security, and even the future domestic tranquility in our streets.

Critical juncture

America is clearly at a critical crossroad, and the decisions that are made ? or that are failed to be made ? by elected officials in the next few years could well determine whether our collective future is better than our past. As a result, it's critically important that this year's federal elections ? including the presidential, Senate and House races ? once again focus on the economy, jobs and fiscal responsibility.

The state of the economy, combined with escalating deficits and debt levels, virtually guarantees that these issues will be a top priority in the presidential election. This does not, however, ensure that the campaigns will be focused on substance and solutions.

In fact, the spinning and the mud slinging have already begun on both sides, and we risk experiencing more of the same over the next several months. This would not be in the interest of our country or our families.

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The nation's federal debt is now almost $16 trillion, up from about $4 trillion at the end of fiscal 1992 and $5.7 trillion at the end of fiscal 2000.

Even more shocking, total federal liabilities and unfunded promises now exceed $70 trillion, up from $20.4 trillion at the end of fiscal 2000. This represents an almost $50 trillion increase in just 12 years, and this amount is growing by about $10 million a minute! We also face a fiscal cliff at the end of this year.

Level with voters

The numbers are huge and unsustainable. As a result, the Comeback America Initiative (CAI) is partnering with a range of other organizations and individuals on a nationwide fiscal responsibility bus tour.

The purpose is to engage voters on these critical issues by stating the facts, explaining the stakes, outlining the tough choices we face, and discussing a range of non-partisan fiscal reforms that should be able to gain bipartisan support. All in the name of keeping America great and the American dream alive for our children, grandchildren and future generations of Americans.

The truth is, a number of common sense reforms have already been proposed and supported by members of both parties. For example, we'll be discussing bipartisan ideas such as "no budget, no pay," which would stipulate that if Congress fails to pass a budget and required spending bills by the end of a fiscal year, the members would not get paid until they fulfilled this responsibility. We'll highlight specific reforms to our major social insurance programs, such as changing current benefit formulas and premium support models to provide greater relative support to lower income individuals. We'll also talk about ideas for reining in health care costs, such as changing the way we pay for medical care ? moving away from fee-for-service and toward "outcomes based" payments ? and reforming our medical malpractice system. Yet another area for discussion we'll explore is how to reform our tax code to make it simpler, fairer and generate more revenue by closing various tax "loopholes."

We need to hear from both presidential candidates, as well as candidates for other federal offices, regarding how they propose to address these issues. The American people have neither the time nor the tolerance for any more demagoguery and partisan sniping. The stakes for this country are far too high.

H. Ross Perot Sr. was a candidate for president of the United States 20 years ago. David M. Walker, a former U.S. Comptroller General, is now CEO of The Comeback America Initiative. You can find out more about the bus tour and the ways voters and the news media can press candidates for substantive answers at10MillionaMinute.com.

Source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/News-Opinion/~3/wFFU1ppxhNA/1

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