U.S. Comptroller General David Walker leads Fiscal Wake-Up Tour to Syracuse April 4

U.S. Comptroller General David Walker leads Fiscal Wake-Up Tour to Syracuse April 4March 29, 2007Jill Leonhardtjlleonha@maxwell.syr.edu

On Wednesday, April 4, the Maxwell School of Syracuse University will host an evening forum featuring the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, a joint public engagement initiative of the Concord Coalition (a nonpartisan grassroots organization), the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation.

Five panel experts will offer brief, informative presentations about various aspects of the nation’s budgetary challenges, followed by a lengthy Q&A period with the audience. The event will be from 7-9 p.m. in Maxwell Auditorium. The public is invited to attend; paid parking is available in the Irving Avenue Garage.

The tour has already visited more than 20 major cities across the country, helping to educate and focus attention on the nation’s daunting long-term fiscal challenges by cutting through the usual partisan rhetoric and stimulating a more realistic public dialogue.

The Wake-Up Tour group coming to Syracuse will be led by Comptroller General of the United States David Walker and Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition. Two Washington think-tank experts will join them: Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution and Alison Fraser of the Heritage Foundation. John L. Palmer, public trustee for the Social Security and Medicare programs and dean emeritus of the Maxwell School, will round out the panel.

“The retirement of the Baby Boom generation, along with the continued rapid rise in health care costs, will soon begin to put enormous pressure on the federal budget,” says Palmer. “It’s the fiscal equivalent of global warming. The longer we delay addressing this problem, the more detrimental will be the consequences. The public needs to be better informed and to demand timely political action.”

Palmer will discuss the current and projected fiscal outlook for Social Security and Medicare and the prospects for reforms that might place them on a more stable long-term financial footing.

A live webcast of the event will be available at http://www.campbellinstitute.org.

To see the “60 Minutes” piece on David Walker and the Wake-Up Tour, visit http://www.cbsnews.com.

To learn more about the “Fiscal Wake-up Tour,” visit http://www.concordcoalition.org.