They call it the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour.
Their message is one of Grownups Behaving Badly, spending beyond their means, expecting their kids and grandkids to pick up the tab.
Economic experts from diverse political perspectives stopped in Lansing to warn about the dire consequences of the federal debt and the looming crisis in Social Security and Medicare.
How bad is it? They say if politicians do nothing to rein in costs, taxes might have to be raised by $11,500 a year to sustain the programs.
Or, in the alternative, Congress could eliminate the whole federal government except Social Security, Medicare and debt service.
It's a bit like tucking your kids into bed each night and then emptying their piggy bank.
"We're spending more money than we make, we are charging it to a credit card, we're building up debt with compound interest and we're expecting our kids and grandkids to pay it off," said U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, who was part of the tour earlier this week. "In many cases, they can't vote. It's not just fiscal irresponsibility. It's immoral."
The group launched the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour in September 2005. It includes representatives of the liberal Brookings Institution, the conservative Heritage Foundation and the Concord Coalition, a group that focuses on fiscal responsibility.
The group held a forum at Michigan State University on Thursday.
Their goal is to get presidential candidates to make fiscal responsibility one of the three top priorities in the presidential general election.
The Social Security dilemma is immense on its own as 78 million baby boomers begin to qualify for benefits.
But those problems are dwarfed by Medicare. And that problem was magnified when Congress expanded the program to include prescription drug coverage.
"The drug benefit is as if we added an entire new Social Security liability," said Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation. "They created the biggest entitlement in 40 years without a single dollar to pay for it."
The group didn't offer solutions to the problem. But it says a bipartisan commission should be created to develop them to be presented to Congress for an up or down vote.
"Up until this point, most Americans thought they were done helping their children by getting them through their education," said Paul Cullinan of the Brookings Institution. "What we are doing now is transferring a lot of responsibility onto those future workers and their children, a debt burden and a tax load that will make it very difficult for them to support a living standard that they have been accustomed to."
Contact Chris Andrews at 377-1054 or candrews@lsj.com.