U.S. finances are 'worse than advertised'

Legacy is a powerful word.

We human beings carry inside our souls a sense of duty about legacy. We want to pass along a piece of ourselves to those who would follow. This great idea of legacy is a human story, one that has been repeated for thousands of years. Our matriarchs and patriarchs chronicled in scriptures (and from many different perspectives) the idea of promise given to a daughter or a son. Sometimes we present to the next generation a family quilt, a fountain pen or a treasure. Here it is, take it. I am passing this on to you.

Legacy is literally to bequeath.

"We're on the cusp of a huge intergenerational transfer of wealth, but it's sort of in the opposite direction, from younger workers to older generations," said Alison Fraser from the Heritage Foundation. That idea "stands against much of what we believe and value as a society — which is to leave things better off for those who follow us."

We are the American generation that only promises massive debt to those who will follow.

Diane Lim Rogers from the Brookings Institution calls this "a birth tax" — a stark, absolute tax that cannot be repealed yet is imposed on every American newborn.

The nation's comptroller general, David Walker, who heads the U.S. General Accountability Office, said it's important for every citizen to know that the country's finances are "worse than advertised."

The problem, he says, is that we've gone from $20 trillion in liabilities and unfunded commitments for things such as Social Security and Medicare in 2000 to $50 trillion in 2006. "That's $435,000 per American household. The median household income in the United States is $36,000 — that's a 9-to-1 debt-to-income ratio, and it's going up every second," he said. "We're spending more than we make, and we're charging it to our credit card."

Last week, the P-I Editorial Board visited with four members from the Concord Coalition's Fiscal Wake-Up Call Tour. Their idea is to get the message out to the American people, an urgent plea to stop the nation's fiscal irresponsibility.

"We can't keep doing what we are doing, and that's true whether you're conservative or liberal, because the numbers just don't add up," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition. "It's a problem of mathematics, not ideology."

The math problem is the gulf between what the government collects in taxes versus what is spent on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.