America, The Roman Empire and Fiscal Policy with Former Comptroller General of the United States, David M. Walker

Today, Dan sits down with David M. Walker, a distinguished public servant who has been at the forefront of U.S. fiscal policy. Walker highlights the lessons history offers us, drawing comparisons between the fall of Rome and today's fiscal challenges. 

Discover why today's youth may not feel drawn to public service and the critical role they could play in ensuring a sustainable future. 

This conversation goes beyond the typical political discourse, offering a refreshing take on how we can engage constructively in the public sphere. 

Show Highlights:

• The lessons from history every American should learn [04:21]
• Are economic challenges rooted in psychology? [06:16]
• Discover the impacts of having a Tunnel vision [06:54]
• Why aren't today's youth choosing government roles? [09:13]
• This is why the government should be more future-focused and results-oriented [12:11]
• The need to be aware of the fiscal responsibility issue [13:54]
• How does point-scoring shape our political discourse? [16:34]
• How can we make space for constructive disagreements? [19:48]

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Transcript:

0:10 All right, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Dan Barrett show. I am the titular Dan Barrett, and this is the show where, every week, I try to dig into how people know what they know, how they learn what they learn, how they do what they do. And this week, I have a really fascinating interview with David Walker. Now this is a short interview, because Mr. Walker is a very, very busy man, but I was so pumped to have him on because I have never had anyone on my podcasts that has been a public servant at the highest levels. And when I say highest levels, I mean it. David Walker was the Comptroller General for the United States. Let me read his bio if you're not familiar with his work because he is an incredibly impressive person. So David Walker is a certified public accountant and former Comptroller General for the United States. He was appointed by President Clinton, unanimously confirmed by the Senate, and he has led the Government Accountability Office from 1998 to 2008 transforming that agency and overseeing more than $380 billion in financial benefits. During his tenure, he had key federal positions under Presidents Reagan, George H W Bush and the aforementioned Bill Clinton, handling everything from Social Security and Medicare oversight to pension negotiations. Beyond government service, he has served as the first President and CEO of the Peter G Peterson foundation. Founded the comeback America initiative to promote fiscal responsibility, and has authored several books, including comeback America and America in 2040 now, when I say someone is a public servant You cannot serve, I mean, there just aren't many levels higher than what this person has accomplished. And what really fascinated me, fascinated me about David, when I got to see him speak originally, was that, first of all, obviously, he served across bipartisan administrations. He served under Democrats, he has served under Republicans. But also his approach to things is in many ways, extremely different than our current political culture. You will find, if you spend some time kind of reading, you know, his work, or talking to him, you will very quickly find that he approaches problems not from a kind of political perspective that is fundamentally and primarily focused on winning political points.

You know, is my side ahead or not? That is not his concern. He is concerned with fiscal policy, and he is concerned with these sort of core principles of fiscal responsibility that have gone to inform everything that he's done, everything he did in the past, what he's doing now, what he's concerned about, you'll hear in the interview talks about what he's working on now, what he's concerned about now we also talk about public service and why young people don't feel called to public service, perhaps in the ways they used to. He's a fascinating person. I'll come back after the interview and give a little bit of my thoughts without any further ado. Let's get into my conversation with the former Comptroller General of the United States. David M Walker, Mr. Walker, so happy to have you here. Thanks for coming. I really appreciate it. I wanted to start, you know, kind of looking over some of your work, I noticed that you often will pull on the lessons of history to kind of reflect what's going on in the modern day. Specifically, I think you've, you've sort of referenced America in the kind of decline of Rome as a way of pulling some of those lessons. I'm very curious. Like, when you look at our current politics, you look at our current national situation, is Rome the best sort of connection that you've found? What lessons do you pull from history that you think are important for us to think about today?

4:22 Well, the two that I talk about when I talk about our deteriorating financial condition and the potential implications are one, Rome. Rome was the longest standing superpower in the history of mankind, about 1000 years. The first 500 years, it was a republic, which we are, but the Republic fell, and for the last 500 years, it was an autocracy, which hopefully we won't become all right, but it fell for a number of reasons. Number one, fiscal irresponsibility, political incivility, moral decline over extended military and inability to control its borders. Those sound familiar clothes. A little I was gonna say, like, and the other one that's, that's from history as it relates to a country or an empire. We're not an empire. Don't want to be an empire. The other one is from par people, and I use Washington quite a bit. Washington was our first president. When he left, he gave several warnings. He said, you know, worry about excessive debt, avoid foreign wars, avoid regionalism and avoid factionalism. What you meant by that, political parties? Well, how are we doing on that? So bottom line is, is that those are just two examples of where we're not learning from lessons of history. We're not We're not learning from some of our founders, and we're at risk if we don't change course. And so my job is try to do what I can to help make sure that we do change course, so that our future is better than our past. So I'm curious when you when you look at those historical allegories, and I was thinking about this particularly in line of sort of debt and fiscal responsibility, whatever you would want to call it. But I think also you can make the same point with the sort of polarization issue. I guess my question is, what is the mechanism behind those things? Is there something psychological and people that we sort of tend to make decisions that are sort of dismissive of far away consequences. Is, does it have to do with the scale of the government, or is it, do you view it as sort of rooted in specific policy decisions that have kind of led us to where we want to be? I guess my real question is, is some of that inevitable, and how much of that do we have control over, and how much of that can we change?

6:44 Well, first, I think we have a lot of people that are suffered with several maladies. Okay, near sidedness. You know, they're focused on the here and now. Okay, tunnel vision. They're looking at one issue without understanding the interconnectivity, the interdependency, how the domino falls and ends up hitting the things, okay, whether it be domestically or actually, or we're in our individual lives, and then, thirdly, self interest. What? What's in it for me? Okay, yeah, and those three malls have reached epidemic proportions in Congress, all right, where, you know, people are concerned about their issues, their state, their district, they're concerned about getting re elected. They don't. They don't necessarily understand the broader picture, both domestically, internationally. They want to get reelected. And you know, if they end up making tough choices about spending or revenues, they may not get reelected. They don't think the people can handle it. So, you know, and quite frankly, we don't always get the full and fair truth about where we are, where we're headed, how we compare to others. You don't know how well you're doing, unless you know, Hey, how are you doing compared to plan? Are you getting better or worse? And how do you compare to your competitors? And all too frequently, with regard to major issues that matter, we don't give people that, you know, and the other thing is, is that people take, take undue comfort in the fact that we have the largest economy in nominal dollars. We don't have the largest economy in purchasing power parity. China does okay. We, you know, we have the most powerful military, although China is starting to rival that now. You know, we have great diplomatic influence. We got, for the most part, a good quality of life and and, but all that's at risk if we don't put our finances in order.

8:29 So this is, this was the question I was going to end with, but it feels connected to this one, which is I work with a fair number of young people and kind of a mentoring role. And something I've really noticed is that very few of them, if any of them, are considering public service as their career option, right? And I think particularly we're in a cultural moment that is very focused on entrepreneurship or just all sorts of different things, right? And I think a lot of people kind of despair about the impact they can have in public service. So I'm curious if the issue is, hey, we need people who have that long term vision. How do we get people like that to consider public service? And what would you say as someone who's spent a significant portion of your life in public service, what would you say to someone that maybe it's considering it, but they view it as incredibly fractious. Or, you know what I mean, like, they're not going to be able to have the impact that maybe they want to have.

9:28 Well, there are generational differences. When I grew up, I knew that I wanted to do some public service at some point in time in my life, okay? And I personally believe that everybody ought to okay, do some type of national service. Doesn't have to be the government, doesn't have to be the military. Could be the not for profit sector, you know, could be in an occupation or an area of the country that's in need, you know. So, something for the country. All right, in my case, I was going to do, I was going to be career military, but I couldn't, because I have a bad left ear. Well, I ended up giving my country over. 20 years, ran three federal agencies, was a trustee of Social Security, Medicare. I'm still on the board of the Defense Department, so, so I think everybody ought to do it. The real benefit is you can make a difference. You can really make a difference for others. All right? I mean, look, look what's going on right now. You got Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. You know, they're not going into government, but they want to try to help, right? I mean, Elon's the richest person in the world. He doesn't need to be doing this, but he's concerned about where things are and where we're headed, so he wants to try to help. That's, you know, that's a part of public service. I think young people need to understand that, let's take the fiscal issue. Their their future is being mortgaged. Investments in their future is being cut when they're going to face a lot tougher competition in an increasingly interconnected and independent world. They have a direct stake in making sure that we change course. They need to be part of the solution. They need to be on the inside rather than the outside, to be part of the solution. And it could be a year, it could be two years, or, you know could be a career, facts and circumstances, I will tell you. I've run organizations the private sector, private, public and not for profit sector, and I've never enjoyed my any job more than my public sector jobs, because you make a difference for your country. You make a difference for others. So

11:19 I know we're coming up on time. I want to be respectful of your time, and I really appreciate everything you've kind of offered so far. I'm curious what you view particularly as your role over the next let's say four years, we're entering a new administration, there's a fair amount of turnover that, particularly lately, it feels like every administration there's a fair amount of like, going back and forth. So like, what do you view as your role in the next four years? And maybe, what advice would you give to people who are entering the next four years and maybe want to stay involved or on top of what's happening? Well, what I'm focused in on writing that right now I'm outside of government, okay? And I don't know that I'll ever go back into government. I would consider it for the right type of position. I don't need to, but I would consider it. What I'm focused on is, is three things, okay, is, how do we transport government to make it more future focused and results oriented? That's part of what Doge is trying to do, and I've had some interaction with them. Secondly, how to create a statutory commission that learns the lessons from Simpson Bowles and that can engage the American people with the facts, the truth, the tough choices. Make recommendations on both spending and revenues, including social insurance programs, to reform them, to make them sustainable and secure and to get our finances in order. And thirdly, how do we get a constitutional amendment on fiscal responsibility that will force the Congress to make recurring choices with regard to spending, revenues and other factors to make sure that we we don't have a debt crisis in the future, and that our future can be better than our past. So those are the three things I'm really working on. Okay, I can do it outside of government or inside of government. I will tell you that there's a big difference between being outside of government inside of government. You generally can make a lot bigger difference if you're on the inside than the outside. But I've fought from different positions on the battlefield, and I'll continue to do it.

13:12 I love that, and it's just like you said, right? Even if someone's on the outside looking in and they want to make a change, you can make a much bigger change, if you know how things are actually work, how they actually work, what it's actually like to be there. So I really, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that, how much I appreciate that advice. Your sort of experience. It's it means a lot to me that you took the time to be with me today. So thank you so much. It's good to be with let me mention one more thing. You deal with, all the young people, they're very involved in environmental issue. That's a real issue. You know, mankind does play a role in climate change, yeah, but, but other countries have to cooperate with us, and if they don't, we can't solve that problem. But young people aren't involved enough in this fiscal sustainability issue, okay? And only we can solve that, and it's their future that's at stake, so they need to get a lot more involved in the fiscal responsibility and sustainability issue if they want their future to be better in the past. I

14:07 love it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It'll be with you. All right, that's going to do it for this week's episode, and I know it was a short one, so I'm going to stick around a little bit and just share some of my thoughts. Now, I will say right off the bat, my level of expertise on fiscal policy is essentially nothing. And when you're talking to someone like David Walker, who's got, you know, a lifetime of experience at the highest levels, I didn't even get into his academic bona fides, which are incredibly impressive, like this man's literally in the accountant Hall of Fame, which didn't even know was a thing, but is a thing, and he's in it, right? So you're talking about someone about this topic, and just aren't many people in the entire world who are going to have anything even close. Resembling his level of expertise, right? And I found, as I was listening to him, there were things that I sort of intuitively agreed with, there were things that I intuitively disagreed with, like Mr. Walker has, like a pretty like positive impression of Elon Musk, or at least was like, hey, Elon Musk is, you know, trying to help out. And I tend to view just personally. I have a view of Elon Musk that is more cynical, and I kind of view him as mostly out for his own enrichment or whatever. But I don't have a lot of evidence to back up my feelings. Right? He does, and he doesn't just have evidence. He has experience. It doesn't mean that you need to take him at his word. There are absolutely experts in this world who are going to disagree with his approach. But I think what's interesting to me, and to kind of maybe pull this down to a level that I can at least comment on, what was so interesting to me was while we were having this conversation, there was essentially a program running in the back of my mind that was trying to fit what he was saying into pre existing political categories, right?

Like, What was he saying that was politically liberal versus politically conservative, today's Republican Party, today's Democratic Party. You know, who is this designed to appeal to? And what I realized is that our politics is very much at current here in the United States anyway, our politics is very much aimed at scoring points. It is essentially a game in which parties are trying to and not just parties. But I mean, people who identify as part of these parties, people identify as one end of the political spectrum or the other, are essentially trying to dunk on one another, just constantly. And this is, you know, maybe a function of my experiences being online for a huge part of my adult development right, particularly being on platforms like Twitter and these platforms that really encourage conflict, and not just encourage conflict, but actually encourage conflict, specifically through the destruction of context, by which I mean you can throw an argument out, or throw an image out, or a piece of evidence, or even a fact, something that's objectively true, that leads someone to believe something specifically because it lacks context. Context is what gives facts and evidence and opinions their weight and their connection to reality. Without context, you have nothing, you simply have information. Information tells you, or I should say, you have data. You don't have information. You just have data. It floats out there connected to nothing, and it can easily be framed in a certain way to make you feel something. And that is ultimately what social media is trying to do. It's getting to it's wants you to feel a certain kind of way. Because when you are upset or you are enraged, or you feel shot in Freud, or you feel superior, you are more likely to stay on that platform and thus click on ads. And this churning machine we have built and then trapped ourselves within profoundly warps our political discourse, and not just by warping what we say, but warping the ways in which and the reasons for which we say them, and in many ways. You know, even if you disagree with David Walker, and I don't think we didn't really get too deep on, you know, we weren't able to really dig deep on any kind of issues. And I don't think he necessarily said anything anyone's going to feel totally, you know, contrary to but let's say you do.

Do you think for a single minute that if you sat down with that man and you had a conversation with him in good faith that you couldn't persuade one another, or perhaps come to some kind of compromise position, or maybe just decide that maybe you don't have the information you need. No you you get the sense, at least, I very much got the sense that this was a person with whom I could have constructive disagreement. And again, I don't, I don't know enough in order to disagree. There's a Charlie Munger has a famous quote that I'm just going to paraphrase. But essentially, you. So the price of having an opinion has to be that you've done the work, that you've read the papers, you've done the research. To have an opinion, you should be able to state your opponent's position as well as they can. And if you haven't done that work, then you should probably withhold your opinion. You're gonna have a feeling one way or another, sort of a tendency to lean one way or the other, I certainly do, but I know for a fact that I don't understand fiscal policy anywhere near enough to have an opinion with a capital O. But if I did, I know for a fact I could sit down with David Walker and have a conversation about it, and we could have a constructive disagreement. And this is my question. When you are discussing politics with someone, when was the last time you felt you could have a constructive disagreement with them?

When was the last time you were in a conversation where you actually thought you could change the other person's mind or they could change yours? And if you're anything like me, you're going to think that those events are very few and far between lately. And that is not good. It is not good, folks. It is profoundly distortive, and it is profoundly damaging. I think so this is like the work I'm doing in dance secret society, the work I'm doing with better questions, the work I'm trying to do with the damn Bucha, where I have these kind of conversations, specifically, what does it feel like to have a conversation with someone in good faith? Because at least for me, I don't get anywhere near enough of that, and it's easy to forget that there are people like that out there. So I just want to say thank you again to David Walker, easily the highest ranking politician I've ever spoken to in person. He was absolutely wonderful, such a giving and sort of intellectually stimulating person, I really cannot tell him how much I appreciate his time, and I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for listening to this show. It means the world to me as always. You can find my work over at better questions.co, that's better questions.co where I share the best of what I'm learning every single week. It's one blog post a week, one email a week. Go and sign up so we can stay in touch. I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. And of course, anywhere you get this podcast and you leave a review, I read every single one, and it means the world to me. All right. Thank you so much. I will see you next week. Have a good one. Cheers. You.