My Dad is a Smart Man

My father warned me last year that the downfall of America won't be from without, but from within, just like the Roman empire. Many other pundits have made similar projections, but this is teh first time I have seen a Governement official make the same analogy:

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.

David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations”.

These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”

Mr Walker’s views carry weight because he is a non-partisan figure in charge of the Government Accountability Office, often described as the investigative arm of the US Congress.

Decay from within allowed the "barbarians" to invade Rome from the north, but the decay had been long in coming.

I don't want to say that America is in decay, nor do I think that is what Walker is saying. What is important is that we have to overcome some petty partisan differences if we are going to really fix some of our problems.