The comptroller: Washington's prophet of fiscal doom

David M. Walker takes the stage, a vision of the prosperous accountant that he is - the crisp suit, the glasses, the receding hairline, the pleasant demeanor. Then he opens his mouth.

"We face something that is unprecedented in the history of this country," Mr. Walker warns. "It is called a demographic tidal wave."

There it is, up on the PowerPoint slide, a graphic showing the start of a statistical tsunami in 2011, when the first Baby Boomer reaches 65 and is eligible for Medicare. But "unlike most tidal waves, which recede, this one will never recede," Walker continues, his tone growing more ominous. "And we ... are not ... prepared."

Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, is scaring people. And he's trying to. On this occasion, the nation's top auditor is addressing last month's White House Conference on Aging, but it is a message he has delivered countless times, to politicians in Washington, business leaders, ordinary citizens - anyone who will listen.

Walker is not the only one trying to get Americans to understand the stakes of what he calls the nation's deteriorating financial condition and long-range fiscal imbalance.

Starting last September, a group of budget watchdogs, including Walker, began what they call a "Fiscal Wake-up Tour," holding events in three cities, with seven more dates scheduled and 20 other cities on a waiting list. Some are held on college campuses; some bring in senior citizens, too. Ideally, say organizers, these events promote intergenerational dialogue. Among this ad-hoc coalition, whose members span the political spectrum, it is Walker who has the most pungent way of expressing himself, his allies say.

"I describe him as the grim reaper; he hasn't denied the charge," says Stuart Butler, a "tour" member with the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington. "When we take part in these things, he lays out the nasty numbers, and the rest of us say what the options are. He's kind of a Sergeant Friday. Just the facts."

In an interview, Walker suggests another label: "A CPA with a personality. I'm no bean-counter."

In Walker's view, the impending demographic wave is only part of the problem. The growth of entitlements and the healthcare system in general threatens to bankrupt the nation, he says, referring to a potential "Argentina scenario" - as in, default.

"Look at how much our liabilities as a nation - and our unfunded promises for Social Security and Medicare - have grown," says the former partner at Arthur Andersen LLP, pointing to a chart that shows the figure for "fiscal exposures" more than doubling in just four years, from $20 trillion in 2000 to $43 trillion by the end of 2004. Of that, $8.1 trillion alone represents the new Medicare prescription drug plan.

"Yes, we need prescription drugs for seniors, but $8.1 trillion is more than the entire debt of the US outstanding since the beginning of the republic in 1789!" he proclaims.

Shades of Ross Perot during the 1992 presidential campaign? Perhaps. As the head of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), Walker's goal has been to speak truth to power, and now, increasingly, help build up grass-roots pressure on Congress and the White House for fiscal reform.

In November 1998, when Walker was named to head the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, the federal budget was in the black - with surpluses projected for years to come. But Walker wasn't sitting easy, and by 2001, he was issuing warnings to Congress.

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