The United States can't afford to keep spending the way it is, and David Walker of the GAO (Government Accountability Office) says that Medicare costs are about to kick in next year, ballooning the costs.

''America suffers from a serious case of myopia, both in the public sector and the private sector," he said. ''We're going nowhere fast. That's not heartening."

The Treasury would need $8.1 trillion right now -- more than three times the current federal budget -- merely to pay for the anticipated costs of providing prescription drugs to seniors over the next 75 years, Walker said.....

Budget watchdog groups celebrated the Bush administration's lower-than-expected deficit projections for next year, but said the country is still living well beyond its means and needs to plan for the future. The United States, once the world's biggest creditor nation, is now its biggest debtor, Walker said.

The article brings up the deception regarding the Medicare bill, which was originally said to cost $400 billion over 10 years, but increased to $540 billiion less than 2 months later after the bill was signed. At the time, the information was deliberately misrepresented by the Bush Administration.

In a report requested by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), the Government Accountability Office issued a ruling today finding that former CMS Administrator Tom Scully illegally ordered his staff to withhold information from Congress. The Department of Health and Human Services has been ordered by the GAO to recover Scully's salary.

"The Bush Administration went so far as to break the law in order to hide information about their flawed Medicare plan," said Sen. Lautenberg. "This was a corruption of the process at the highest levels. President Bush's former Medicare chief needs to pay back his salary, as the Government Accountability Office has ordered.