The $10 Million Per Minute Platform

The Republican Party’s party in Tampa is over; there were no surprises. The Democrats are having their fiesta this week in Charlotte, and there will be no surprises. Each of these two major political parties will launch into their official campaigns armed with well-vetted talking points and skilled orators (excepting the current Vice President), and holding high their respective party's 2012 Platform.

The Platforms are lengthy documents (the GOP version runs to 55 pages) drafted by committees of Party die-hards in long, hard-nosed work sessions; but which will be quickly forgotten once the votes are tallied November 6th. The tomes will be dusted off again four years hence, to be argued anew and modified to provide a veneer of substance for the 2016 nominees.

While there clearly are differences between the competing Platforms, there are similarities as well. Both, for example, extol bedrock American values such as hard work, fairness and community. Both claim commitment to limited government (although the Democratic version can hardly be said to do so with the proverbial “straight face”).

Perhaps most noticeably, both Platforms promise to tackle the huge federal debt, oblivious to the fact that both the incumbent, Democratic president and his Republican predecessor contributed mightily to its current mass, which threatens the country's continued status as a world economic superpower.

In fact, the agenda with which a serious effort can be launched to actually tackle the looming financial crisis facing America in the form of more than $70 trillion in current debt and future unfunded liabilities emanates neither from Tampa nor Charlotte. It will begin later this week in Manchester, New Hampshire. And neither Mr. Romney nor Mr. Obama will there (though both should be).

At the helm of the most ambitious and practical effort ever to educate Americans about the true scope and actual effects of the profligate spending that has been the hallmark of the current and immediate past administrations, will be a man who has never held or sought elective office; but who knows first-hand of what he speaks.

On Friday, former Comptroller General of the United States David Walker will launch his "$10 Million Per Minute" bus tour, reflecting in its name the true speed at which America's future is being mortgaged. The bus tour is an important part of the "Comeback America Initiative" which Walker heads; and it will spend the next month touring battleground states and impressing on American citizens, businesses, and media outlets, the genuine urgency with which the national debt burden must be understood and dealt with.