America's Need For Leadership: Rising To The Challenge

This speech was given by the Comptroller General before the AGA's 54th Annual Professional Development Conference on July 12, 2005. The United States currently faces three deficits with significant economic and other implications for our future. The first is our federal budget deficit, a vast majority of which has nothing to do with the current global war against terrorism and incremental homeland security costs. More important than any current and short-term deficits, we face large and growing structural deficits in the future due primarily to known demographic trends, rising health care costs and relatively low federal revenues as a percentage of the economy. The second deficit is our nation's balance-of-payments deficit of which our record trade deficit is a sub-set. The third is our overall savings deficit. The United States has the lowest savings rate of any major industrialized country which means, among others things, that we have to increasingly rely on foreign players to finance our budget deficits and excess consumption. These three deficits represent a much greater long-term threat to the United States than any country or terrorist group. They also present enormous leadership challenges. Failure to act decisively and in a timely manner to address this "triple threat" may represent the greatest risk to our collective future with significant domestic and international implications. As at the founding of our nation, we need more leaders today who have the vision to see the way forward, the courage to challenge the status quo, and the willingness to take on many vested interests necessary in order to help create a more positive future for our country and all Americans. We need more leaders in government, the private sector and the not-for profit sector who will rise to the challenge in order to help ensure that our best days are ahead of us rather than behind us. In my view, our country is at a critical crossroads in its history. The choices that key policymakers and other key players make, or fail to make, within the next decade will likely have profound implications for the future of our country, children and grandchildren. Key policymakers need to recognize the realities of our current imprudent and unsustainable fiscal path. They also need to heed the key warning signs relating to our education, energy, environmental health care, infrastructure and other important public policy challenges.