He started off the night with jokes that filled Memorial Union’s Great Hall with laughter. The crowd of approximately 700 responded to him like a well rehearsed orchestra to its conductor. Immediately, a somber silence overtook the audience when he called out the issue at hand. He called it “the most predictable economic crisis in history.” And then he took off.

Erskine Bowles, who spoke to the Ames community on Thursday night, is the former president of the University of North Carolina, former director of the Small Business Administration, response coordinator to the December 2004 Tsunami in Asia, and cochairman of The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform committee — and that’s just what was on the flyer for his lecture.

Bowles, who specifically said “the fiscal path that this nation is on today is simply not sustainable,” and compared the United States’ deficits to cancer, outlined what he believes are the country’s five principle challenges.

No. 1 on his list: Health care.

Bowles said the United States spends twice as much on health care than any other country. Using time as a tool to measure the amount spent on health care, he said that in 1991, only 10 percent of the federal budget was spent on health care. Currently, he expanded, 25 percent is being used for that purpose, and if there is no change, one third of the federal budget will be dedicated to health care by 2020.

No. 2: Defense.

Bowles said to the audience that the United States spends more on defense than the next 15 largest countries combined, among them Russia and China.

“I personally think that America is bearing a disproportionate responsibility today for global peace and I think that America cannot afford to be the world’s policemen,” Bowles said.

No. 3: Income Tax Code.

“We have the most inefficient, ineffective, globally anticompetitive tax code that man could dream up. You couldn’t design a stupider one,” Bowles said, who wants to get rid of what he called “backdoor spending in the tax code” in his proposal to simplify the code.

No. 4: Social Security.

Bowles’ policy regarding this issue is to, essentially, make it sustainable and reliable. “If we do nothing … social security under current law will go broke in 2033.”

The Simpson-Bowles proposal called for a restructure of social security, which includes a raise in retirement age about 40 years from now. When the retirement age was originally set, life expectancy was much shorter than it is now. His logic includes adjusting for that.

No. 5: Compound Interest.

Bowles said $250 billion are spent on interest payments annually and that by 2020, the United States is on track to be paying more than $1 trillion. Bowles pointed out that all of the money spent paying compound interest was money that could not be spent on domestic projects.

After his speech, Bowles fielded questions from the audience and truly made it “A Conversation on the National Debt.”

“I think the [Simpson-Bowles] commission itself made an effort to look beyond the political ramifications and make their recommendations based on objective facts and rationality,” said Prasad Raman, senior in aerospace engineering, after the conversation was over.

Bowles himself stuck around a while to answer questions afterwards.

“I was very intrigued by what Mr. Bowles had to say,” said Khayree Fitten, freshman in political science. “It made it seem like there does need to be a more balanced approach. … I’m more encouraged that there are more balanced ways to [fix the budget],”

For students who want to take action right now, Bowles encouraged attending town hall meetings and questioning politicians before giving them their vote.

Bowles created an analogy for the economic situation. A Nobel winning scientist began running out of money for a project and said: “Hey! We’re running out of money. Now we’ve got to start thinking.” That’s the situation Bowles believes the United States is in. The country is running out of money, and it has to start thinking.