Unusually tough talk from U.S. Comptroller General David Walker coming up this Sunday on “60 Minutes.”  According to a press release, Walker:

“…says the law that added a prescription drug benefits to Medicare may be the most financially irresponsible legislation passed since the 1960s. …[Walker] says Medicare — barring vast reform to the program and the nation’s healthcare system — is already on course to possibly bankrupt the treasury and adding the prescription bill just makes the situation worse. “The prescription drug bill is probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s,” says Walker, “because we promise way more than we can afford to keep.”  He argues that the federal government would need to have $8 trillion today, invested at treasury rates, to cover the gap between what the program is expected to take in and what it is expected to cost in the next 75 years — and that is in addition to more than $20 trillion that will be needed to pay for other parts of Medicare. “We can’t afford to keep the promises we’ve already made, much less to be piling on top of them,” he tells Kroft.

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