DO YOURSELF A big favor. No, better yet, do me a favor. Log onto this site and read it carefully.

www.gao.gov/htext/d07648cg.html

Send it to everyone you know. Print it and read it with your kids who are over 18. I can't emphasize this enough. No BS here. Your future depends on it. Your children's futures depend on it.

If you're 30 or under, take twenty minutes and pull your head out of the tabloids and those silicone boobs at the gentlemen's club. This is your wake-up call. Mommy and Daddy and the rest of us baby-boomers won't give a crap about your standard of living because we'll be drooling on our bibs.

So, you guys need to get serious and passionate about this.

OK, so what the heck is it?

It's a speech entitled "Fiscal Facts and Keeping America Great."

The speech is written and delivered by the clearest thinking person in America. His name is David Walker. His position is U.S. Comptroller General; in short, he's the nation's accountant. Unlike many government officials, elected or appointed, Walker is truthful and insightful.

He says in the speech:

As the federal official who signs the audit report on the government's financial statements, I'm here to tell you our government's financial condition is worse than advertised.

And yet, he is never mentioned by any candidate running for the presidency today. Walker warns us about the unfunded commitments for Social Security and Medicare. I can hear some of you now saying, "boring!" OK, let me spice it up. The price tag is more than $50,000,000,000,000. That's 50 trillion and you owe it. Walker explains:

Our government has made a whole lot of promises that, in the long run, it can't possibly keep. And here's why. Fifty trillion dollars translates into an IOU of about $440,000 for every American household. Keep in mind that the median household income in this country is less than $50,000 a year. For the typical family, it's like having a mortgage that's 9 1/2 times their annual income. And that mortgage doesn't even come with a house! This burden is rapidly outpacing the net worth of most Americans and the growth rate of our economy.

However, Congress and the President won't tell us about the future debt. We balanced the budget, right? Wrong. We'll pay it later. Wait, let's have our kids pay it when they're older.

It's like going home to your wife and saying, "The bills are paid, Honey" but you failed to mention the five million dollar loan you pushed back twenty years on that forty foot, gold statue of Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton discussing Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

Walker says the lack of transparency in government and the lack of solid reporting by the media leave many of us without any real answers about the dangers ahead.

Unless we reform Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, these programs will eventually crowd out all other federal spending, including defense. Based on historical federal tax levels, by 2040 our government could be doing little more than sending out Social Security checks and paying interest on our massive national debt.

Think about that. We won't be able to buy weapons systems or educate our kids because we've spent too much money to make sure someone can clean up the mess in your parents and my pants. All joking aside, if this scenario is not taken seriously the only way to a viable U.S. is to adapt Kevorkian methods and get rid of all the baby-boomers once they hit a certain age.

I'm much more dark and pessimistic here than David Walker is. Walker, in the speech, believes America can overcome this. But we agree about this: something needs to be done soon.

Don't say in thirty years I didn't warn you.

Once you've caught the fiscal bug, read this book: Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It by Peter G. Peterson. Also, check out the Concord Coalition Web site: www.concordcoalition.org.

Special thanks to long-time buddy Steve Quish, of West Hartford, Connecticut, for getting me the link. At 50, he also fears for his kids having to clean-up after him. And believe me, the Quish kids will have plenty to clean up.