David M. Walker (born October 2, 1951) is an American CPA and public servant who served as the Comptroller General of the United States from 1998 to 2008, and is founder and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative (CAI) from 2010 to 2013.
[5][6] In 2008 Walker was personally recruited by Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, and former Secretary of Commerce under Richard Nixon, to lead his new foundation.
The Foundation distributed the documentary film, I.O.U.S.A.,[7] which follows Walker and Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition, around the nation, as they engage Americans in town-hall style meetings.
Peterson was cited by The New York Times as one of the foremost "philanthropists whose foundations are spending increasing amounts and raising their voices to influence public policy".
Walker has compared the present-day United States to the Roman Empire in its decline, saying the U.S. government is on a "burning platform" of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, expensive overcommitments to government provided health care, swelling Medicare and Social Security costs, the enormous expense of a prospective universal health care system, and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon.
[9][10][11][12] Walker has also taken the position that there will be no technological change that will mitigate health care and social security problems into 2050 despite ongoing discoveries.
[13] In another op-ed in the Financial Times, he argued that the credit crunch could portend a far greater fiscal crisis;[14] and on CNN, he said that the United States is "underwater to the tune of $50 trillion" in long-term obligations.
Along with former Fed Vice Chairman Alice Rivlin, Walker danced the Harlem Shake in a video produced by The Can Kicks Back, a nonpartisan group that attempted to organize millennials to pressure lawmakers to address the United States' then $16.4 trillion debt.
[21] Walker pledged to support term limits for the office of governor and said that gubernatorial candidates should run as a ticket, so then voters know who would be their leaders.
Walker received the Gold Medal Award of Distinction from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' on October 19, 2008.