David Walker Takes on America's Fiscal Spree

Former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has been warning for years about America's out-of-control spending. He currently serves as president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and recently authored Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility.

Can we save Social Security? How does health-care reform get helped or hurt by reforming our fiscal foundation? As he notes in a recent speech to The Commonwealth Club, the country was facing huge levels of national debt even before the financial crisis of this past year and a half; with the record deficits of the past year and the new year, Walker's topic of fiscal responsibility is certainly not going out of style. Alas.

Watch the video above from his January 25, 2010, speech to The Club, or listen to the audio here.

(Quick note: The video above is the entire hour-long Commonwealth Club program, so to avoid having the video stop and start, you might want to pause it after a few seconds, let more of it download, then continue.)