William Isaac

My good friend, Peter Tanous, has written a thoughtful article for CNBC on the necessity of the U.S. joining most of the rest of the world in adopting a Value Added Tax as a critically important step toward significantly reducing our dangerously out of control debt problems. I believe firmly that we must also reduce senseless Federal spending but, realistically, that alone will not do the job. We will also need a reasonable and fair way to increase Federal revenues. It’s time for the VAT tax coupled with a substantial reduction in wasteful Federal spending.

Larry Kudlow’s opinion in the NY Sun regarding the 3+% GDP growth announced by the U.S. government this past week. Unfortunately for those celebrating this event – particularly those in the White House – the bad news, as Kudlow notes, is that all of the growth is attributable to massive deficit spending by the government, which will not have a happy ending for consumers, businesses, and taxpayers.

I urge you to read the New York Sun editorial titled “How Will We Survive the ‘Deluge of Debt’?”. We all know and talk about the mountain of debt that exists not only in the in the United State but throughout the world. It was my incredible honor, as Chairman of the FDIC, to work side by side with the legendary central banker now deceased, Paul A. Volcker, from 1978 when he was appointed by President Carter as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.