Panel: national debt on college set

Your parents and grandparents may have created the problem, but as a college student,… Your parents and grandparents may have created the problem, but as a college student, you’ll be the one who’ll bear the brunt of the United States’ crippling national debt.

Oh, and they expect you to fix the problem, too.

This was the message a high-powered panel of economists and policy wonks moderated by former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill told an audience in Oakland last night.

“Your generation, if willing to change, can make it change and end the ongoing deficit,” said David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General, commenting on the projected U.S. Federal debt, which is currently over $9 trillion.

This mounting debt was the focus of the Pitt Honors College sponsored panel on “America’s Looming Fiscal Crisis” held last night at the Twentieth Century Club on Bigelow Boulevard.

As one of the four panelists, Walker stressed how the federal debt currently being accumulated is not affecting his generation as much as it is going to affect today’s college students.

Organized by the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan organization, the panel stopped in Pittsburgh as part of 30-city tour that began in 2005 as the Fiscal Wake Up Tour.

The aim of the forum is to draw attention to America’s overwhelming long-term financial issues and to help form public dialogue. According to the executive director of the Concord Coalition, Robert Bixby, this election year should be America’s wake-up call to drastically lower the debt.

Along with Alice Rivlin, senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, and Brian Riedl, senior policy analyst of the Heritage Foundation, the panelists agreed that there isn’t a single person or group to point the blame at.

They also agreed that in the upcoming 2008 presidential election, each candidate owes the people a plan of action to combat the deficit.

“Those who will be affected by this deficit are my children and grandchildren, but they can’t stand up for themselves,” said Walker. “Your generation is unfortunately taking the bill and the burden of the money but can change it for the better.”

According to Riedl, programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have helped lead to such an outstanding debt. The problem with these programs, he said, is that more money is being spent on these programs then is being brought back into them.

Bixby echoed Riedl’s sentiments.

“They aren’t sustainable. These programs are supposed to benefit, not burden the people.”

Riedl believes that the only way to help solve the problem is to modernize the three programs and reorganize them.

He went on to say that the numbers add up and it’s not just a projection, it’s fact. The Federal government spends $400 billion more than it takes in a year – an illustration of how our economy’s future is grim, according to Bixby.

In addition, Riedl said, politicians are afraid to make the tough reforms needed because they are constantly concerned about staying in office.

He noted that there is a need for courageous law makers with the ability to look past their time in office and vote on some of the tough issues that would help lead to reducing the debt.

Riedl believes that one attempt can’t be made but, a collaboration of programs, ideas and most importantly the American people.

“I think we should encourage average people,” Rivlin said. “We can get out of this problem and do what our politicians can’t.”