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David Walker  

Author, Respected Executive and Champion of National Fiscal Responsibility

David M. Walker is a CPA with over 40 years of leadership experience in all three major sectors of the U.S. economy. He serves on a number of boards and advisory committees and is a senior advisor to several entities. He most recently served as CEO of the Comeback America Initiative (CAI), and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Previously, Walker served as the seventh comptroller general of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) for almost ten years (1998–2008).This was one of Walker's three presidential appointments each by different presidents of both major political parties during his 15 years of full-time federal service.

Walker also has over 20 years of private sector experience, including approximately ten years as a partner and global managing director of human capital services for Arthur Andersen LLP. Walker is a former chairman of the United Nations Independent Audit Advisory Committee, a former assistant secretary of Labor for Employee Benefits Security, a former head of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and a former public trustee of Social Security and Medicare. He has authored three books, with the latest one entitled Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility (2010) achieving National Bestseller status. He is a frequent writer and commentator, is a subject of the critically acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A., and has appeared in several other documentaries. Walker recently tested his state policy and political reform ideas during a statewide campaign in Connecticut.

Speech Topics

What Would the Founders Say?: Historical and Modern-Day Perspectives on the Fiscal Crisis

Like a modern-day Paul Revere, David Walker warns that while our country’s current fiscal crisis is eerily similar to the downfall of Rome, Americans have a proven historical capacity to overcome any challenge when "We the People" wake up and get going. Walker shares an engaging historical perspective that takes listeners from Rome to the Founding Fathers’ original intent. With deftness and detail, he shows how we got here, what measures we must take to get ourselves out of the financial morass and what the implications will be if we continue to follow the "status quo" path. In spite of the fiscal crisis, Walker imparts his faith that Americans will respond with commitment to the sacrifices required to make sure that our future is better than our past.

Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility

He’s one of America’s most capable, candid and independent financial experts. Now David M. Walker sounds a call to action. As Comptroller General of the United States—"the nation’s top auditor"—Walker warned Congress and the administration as the federal surplus became a giant deficit over the last decade. Now, as the founder and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative, Walker has mounted a national campaign to raise public awareness regarding the wasteful ways of Washington and the rising debt burdens being imposed on future generations. He advocates returning to the timeless principles and values that made us great while making the tough choices necessary to help ensure that our future is better than our past. With the federal government’s financial hole already over 13 trillion dollars deep and growing rapidly, Walker presents ways for our country to rein in out-of-control government spending and reform our Social Security, health care, defense, tax, political and other systems before it’s too late.

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