I Didn't Realize US Comptroller Resigned

This is the #1 story on CBSMarketwatch.com today - I missed the fact Mr. Walker resigned. I've listened to him over the years and found him to be refreshing, realistic, blunt, and honest. Obviously, there is little room for a man like him in Washington DC, and I can only begin to imagine the frustration he must feel walking into work every day and running his head into the wall, watching politicians continue to promise the world to Americans to buy votes, and sending our grandchildren and great grandchildren into a death spiral of debt. He is like the one parent, surrounded by hundreds of 3 year old kids who act like they listen but once the parent turns his back for even 15 seconds, go on misbehaving.

Personally, I cannot wait to see what he is going to say now that he does not have to walk a fine line of appeasing the feelings of drunken spenders and will be in a self funded foundation, where he can really speak his mind (and he has already been saying things that I am sure peeved off many in that town!)

• The resignation of America's unheeded and under-funded chief accountant and watchdog, along with the billion-dollar bullhorn he's been given, are the ultimate sell signals for America's stock investors.
• David Walker, comptroller general of the General Accountability Office (GAO) has since 1998 been the objectively informed and outspoken critic of America's balance sheet. He has criticized supporting Iraq's dysfunctional government, pork barrel spending by Congress, unrealistic "universal health care plans" we can ill-afford or support, the escalating risks of huge deficits, fiscal vulnerability to hostile foreign governments, and a lack of will to reform our government.
• Facing indifference on the Hill and unrealistic spending promises, Walker is resigning with five years still remaining in his term to head the newly formed Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Peterson, senior chairman of The Blackstone Group and Commerce secretary in the Nixon administration, has pledged an astounding startup budget for the foundation of $1 billion.
• That money will attack what the foundation considers "the most substantial economic, fiscal and other sustainability challenges of our current age" -- including federal entitlement programs, health care, unprecedented trade and budget deficits, low savings rates, mounting foreign debt, soaring energy consumption, an uncompetitive educational system, and the proliferation of nuclear warfare materials. Maybe Congress will listen this time. (BRAVO!)
• "I have been around a very long time, and I have never seen so many simultaneous challenges that I would describe as undeniable, unsustainable and virtually untouchable politically," Peterson said in a prepared statement.

Here is an example of the fiscal ills we are facing, put into simple Powerpoint that even the most simplistic Congress Person should understand. Not that they want to be bothered with facts. I do urge our foreign debt buyers to also read this report - or perhaps they are. See how the dollar is acting.