May 1, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward

Sounding the alarm on a looming fiscal nightmare

The Heritage Foundation is taking part in the Concord Coalition’s Fiscal Wakeup Tour in order to draw attention to our nation’s coming “tsunami wave of spending,” Heritage’s Stuart Butler said today at the President’s Club meeting in Washington.

If America doesn’t act soon, the tax burden—and economic growth—could soon reach European levels said Butler, Heritage’s Vice President for Domestic and Economic Policy.

It is important to recognize, Butler said, that the coming fiscal crisis is not a conservative problem or a liberal problem; it is an American problem. To that end, Heritage is working closely with groups from across the political spectrum to point out the danger of runaway spending. Other members of the Fiscal Wakeup Tour include the Concord Coalition, the Brookings Institution, the Committee for Economic Development and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Coming from widely divergent points of view, experts from these think tanks disagree on some solutions—though they agree on many—and decided it is vital to reject partisan politics and report the undisputed truth: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are going to run out of money. Members of the Fiscal Wakeup Tour agree that if nothing is done, the coming disaster will force upon Americans choices that will threaten the well-being of America’s elderly.

In fact, Heritage’s Alison Fraser is on the road today with the Fiscal Wakeup Tour, speaking in Wilmington, DE, and Philadelphia, PA, about the need to get spending under control.

This is part of a broader effort to put partisan differences aside and put the nation’s looming fiscal nightmare into better focus. In addition to its efforts with the Fiscal Wakeup Tour, Heritage is also working with groups like Public Agenda, the Urban Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute to explain what the lawmakers can do to break the logjam on entitlement reform.

Heritage is also working directly with the President and members of Congress to explain the need to make hard choices about spending, Butler continued. We cannot simply raise taxes to solve the problem, he said, since “when you provide more revenue to Congress, all it does is spend it” and makes it “easier to avoid making hard decisions.”

Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.