Fiscal Wake-Up tour champions responsible federal financing

In light of present-day economic troubles and in an effort to prevent future monetary crises, Boston College hosted the Concord Coalition-sponsored Fiscal Wake-Up Tour. Held in the Irish Room, the lecture entitled "Comparative Catastrophe: America's Current and Future Crises" discussed the economic difficulties current college students will face as national debt increases.

The event was hosted and moderated by Joseph Coutlis Al-Shanniek, CSOM '09, who invited the touring group to campus nearly a year ago. "It's wonderful having some of the greatest minds in the world discuss [economic policies] because they're setting the base for students at BC and other students worldwide to address these issues because nobody's addressing them," Al-Shanniek said. "It's really quite sad because we're the ones who will be so affected by it as students searching for jobs starting this May, trying to raise our families in the future, and, eventually, retire."

With a panel discussion composed of David M. Walker, former United States comptroller general, Robert Bixby, executive director of Concord Coalition, Stuart Butler, vice president for domestic and economic policy at The Heritage Foundation, and Belle Sawhill, vice president and executive director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution, the event covered what the Concord Coalition calls the four deficits: budget, savings, trade, and leadership. Each deficit currently faces disadvantages brought about not by the recession, but economic institutions such as Social Security and Medicare, Walker said, making a particular point about the lacking leadership deficit. "Whether it's in government or private sectors, too many people are living for today; too many people are doing what they want rather than what the country needs," Walker said. "Not enough people are making the tough choices needed to make a better tomorrow, and that's where we are today."

The leadership issues coupled with the increasing debt due to necessary elder organizations has influenced the need for a provocation to college students, the panelists said. "Imagine that your parents took out a mortgage on your house, and then they died," Sawhill said. "They hadn't paid off your mortgage, and they said to you, 'You've got to pay this mortgage.' That's basically what we're doing. This generation's taxes are going to be a lot higher to pay the cost that we're incurring now because we're not being good stewards of our resources."

"When you're in the prime of your work years, there won't be the opportunities, there won't be the economic growth, and you'll have to pay much higher taxes to keep us in Social Security and Medicare," Bixby said.

The panelists made particular note of foreign policy issues and said that America has the highest bill trade deficit in the world at $800 billion with the United Kingdom trailing in a distant second with $200 billion. Furthermore, America's habitual borrowing of money from the OPEC oil countries and China, countries not particularly friendly with the United States, is beginning to influence foreign policy, Sawhill said. "People need to understand that we're losing hold on our economic destiny."

The panelists said students should engage in more discussions of such economic matters in an effort to create greater discourse and action against the possible monetary threats of the future, threats that Al-Shanniek claims Congress finds a burden. "Young people have to be on the frontline of demanding change because you all will pay the price and bear the burden if elected officials fail to lead, and so far, they've failed to lead," Walker said. "They've been laggards, not leaders."

Sawhill said that steps should be taken to help the economy not just during times of recession, but in a manner that will keep future generations of out debt. "We're talking about the longer term after the economy has recovered to its normal state, and we're talking about starting now to put measures in place that will assure that once the recession is over, we will have some fiscal responsibility built into policies," Sawhill said. "We can walk and chew gum at the same time."