Bridgeport resident and former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has founded the Comeback America Initiative, a national fiscal think tank on State Street in the city.
“The greatest economic peril facing the nation is being ignored,” said Walker, whose organization aims to develop and promote nonpartisan solutions to the federal deficit and debt.
“I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not a terrorist, but our own fiscal irresponsibility,” said Walker, who has been traveling the nation on tour touting the message and educating about the cause of his organization.
A resident of Bridgeport, Walker served as comptroller general from 1998 to 2008.
“Since our federal financial condition is deteriorating and with no real plan from our elected leaders in Washington, D.C., to address the nation”™s structural deficits, I felt compelled to create an organization that would develop and promote sensible solutions to put our federal finances in order,” Walker said. “Since my time as U.S. Comptroller General, I have been warning lawmakers and the American people that the U.S. government”™s addiction to debt will eventually result in a debt crisis if it is not addressed in a reasoned, responsible and timely manner. We are now headed for a fiscal abyss, and we must change course to prevent a global economic collapse.”
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is backing the institute with a $3.1 million grant. Walker was the CEO and president of the Peterson Foundation and stepped down to create CAI. Peterson finances several organizations working on budgetary issues including the Economic Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation.
Walker has assembled an 11-member board of directors made up of CEOs and politicians including Michael Critelli, the former CEO of Pitney Bowes and Harold Ford Jr., a former Congressman and the executive vice chairman of Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.
The initiative has also partnered with Stanford University”™s MBA program to develop an economic index that will be based on available international data in order to reveal where the U.S. actually stands as compared to other major countries in regards to fiscal sustainability.
“Without a credible plan, we could have a crisis of confidence that could lead to dramatically higher interest rates, a steep global economic downturn and much higher levels of unemployment within the next three to five years,” Walker said. “We must not let this happen.”
