Should the war on the federal budget deficit ultimately be won, former U.S. Comptroller David Walker is likely to emerge as one of its battlefield heroes.

   Walker delivered his compelling and timely sermon of economic repentance to a luncheon mix of Utah local and state elected officials on Wednesday (Jan. 26), warning that the ongoing fiscal madness being engaged in by the federal government cannot continue.

   The former head of the U.S. Government Accounting Office for nine years under presidents Bill Clinton and George Walker Bush, Walker pulled no punches explaining how the current trajectory of U.S. Government spending is unsustainable and why changes must be made to sidestep economic calamity.

   Walker told the audience that America has strayed from the principles and values that made it a great nation to the point where the future is at risk. “We think we are a great country and a great nation but we aren’t as great as we think.”

    He said Tuesday night’s State of the Union address is a case in point. “The tone and tenor were positive and the delivery eloquent, but the president missed an opportunity to state to the American people where we (really) are.”

   The U.S. is heading toward an “unacceptable” outcome and state and local officials find themselves on the frontlines of the battle. “State and local governments must lead the way,” Walker urged, suggesting that the states must be the experiments that the founding founders intended so that their successes can then be replicated at the national level.

   In that regard, he believes Utah to be in much better shape than many other states, some who may soon be looking to Washington to help solve their individual economic morasses. “But thinking the federal government will bail out the states is unrealistic,” he said.

   Walker, who now leads the Comeback America Initiative, has been preaching against what he sees as unrealistic, unsustainable and unfunded government commitments for providing health care and bloated entitlement programs, such as Social Security. His newest endeavor promotes fiscal responsibility and sustainability on a non-partisan basis to solve the nation's fiscal imbalances.

   This is not just an economic issue, it’s a moral issue. The path we’re on is not moral,” Walker said.

   He also told his Salt Lake audience, sprinkled with high school student leaders from up and down the state, how he deplores the nation’s young people being “had” under the present system of kicking the can down the road largely because they tend not to vote. He said this group will continue being targeted until that changes.

   Walker once told a national television audience, "You know the American people, I tell you they are absolutely starved for two things: the truth, and leadership."

   Utah's elected officials just received healthy doses of both.