Decline and Fall

U.S. comptroller general: America is Rome

By Justin Raimondo

"Is America going the way of Rome? David Walker, the comptroller general of the U.S., has issued a report that basically answers in the affirmative: "The U.S. government is on a 'burning platform' of unsustainable policies and practices," Walker avers, including "fiscal deficits" and "overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon." If we continue on our present course, Walker warns, we are in for "dramatic" tax hikes, a radical reduction in government "services," and "the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of U.S. debt." The Chinese certainly concur with that last prediction.

"Sound familiar?" asks Walker. It ought to, he contends, because we are going down the path the ancient Romans took. There are, he says, "striking similarities," including "declining moral values and political civility at home, an overconfident and overextended military in foreign lands, and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government."......"