Raising Public Awareness

Recently a few movies caught my attention. W. is coming to theaters on Oct. 17. It is about the life of our current president, George W. Bush, and how he came to where he is now. I think it is interesting because despite all the negative things said about him, he still served as the president of the US for 8 years, and I really don't know much about him. I wish the movie can give the viewer a honest look at Bush's life and his time in the White House.

W. reminded me of another recent movie, I.O.U.S.A., also a movie with a title that ends with a period. This movie is a documentary made by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF), and it talks about our national debt and how it is a huge problem for our future if we don't do something about it quickly. I wanted to watch it when it came out in August 2008, but it was only shown in major cities like New York and Philadelphia, not close to where I live. Fortunately it will be shown at Union College on Oct. 23rd so maybe I can get a seat at that showing.

The gist of it is that Americans and the US government have been living on borrowed money for decades, savings rate has gone down the drain, and as the Baby Boomer generation starts to retire, we will not be able to continue to fund our government programs and health care benefits and everything else by borrowing more from other countries. Just recently on Sep. 30, the National Debt Clock in New York City ran out of digits to display the $10 trillion figure. When they made the display in 1989, they didn't anticipate that the debt will go over 13 digits. Actually, if you include outstanding Social Security and Medicare benefits that are due in the future, the debt is close to $53 trillion. Currently we don't know how we are going to fund these benefits.

Something I learned today is that David Walker is now PGPF's CEO and he is trying to raise public awareness on issues that will affect the future generations of Americans. David Walker was the US Comptroller General from 1998 to March 2008, and he must have seen and understood the problem in the federal government when it comes to budgets and spending.

There are also some related books on this topic: Empire of Debt and I.O.U.S.A.