Four deficits of the Apocalypse

From the WSJ:

David Walker sounds like a modern-day Paul Revere as he warns about the country's perilous future. "We suffer from a fiscal cancer … Our off balance sheet obligations associated with Social Security and Medicare put us in a $56 trillion financial hole—and that's before the recession was officially declared last year. America now owes more than Americans are worth—and the gap is growing!"
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He became president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a group seeking to educate the public and policy makers on the need for fiscal prudence. … Last year, it released a documentary "I.O.U.S.A.," … [I]n its diagnosis of the problem the film scores a bull's-eye. Among the fiscal hawks featured in the film is Rep. Ron Paul, who memorably tells Alan Greenspan that if doctors had the same success rate in meeting his goals as the Fed has had, patients would be dead all over America.

Mr. Walker's own speeches are vivid and clear. "We have four deficits: a budget deficit, a savings deficit, a value-of-the-dollar deficit and a leadership deficit," he tells one group. "We are treating the symptoms of those deficits, but not the disease."

Mr. Walker identifies the disease as having a basic cause: "Washington is totally out of touch and out of control," he sighs. "There is political courage there, but there is far more political careerism and people dodging real solutions." He identifies entrenched incumbency as a real obstacle to change. "Members of Congress ensure they have gerrymandered seats where they pick the voters rather than the voters picking them and then they pass out money to special interests who then make sure they have so much money that no one can easily challenge them," he laments.
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As I prepare to go, Mr. Walker returns to the theme of economic education. Poor schools often produce young people with few tools to help them realize the extent of the fiscal trap their generation is going to fall into.

One way the Peterson Foundation wants to change that is to bring big numbers down to earth so people can comprehend them. "Our $56 trillion in unfunded obligations amount to $483,000 per household. That's 10 times the median household income—so it's as if everyone had a second or third mortgage on a house equal to 10 times their income but no house they can lay claim to."

So instead of conquest, war, famine and death we have “a budget deficit, a savings deficit, a value-of-the-dollar deficit and a leadership deficit” — a different form of judgement day.

Latest in a series of outsourced economic policy criticism as a cost-cutting move during difficult times.