1. Steve, how COULD you do that?

   You know perfectly well that the largest expansion in your chart was: a. medical care for the elderly and b. medical care for the poorest of U.S. What you did not mention was a fact well know to you – that almost all medical care that was previously covered by strong unions’ agreements no longer exist. What you also must know is that the costs of providing health coverage for those with no insurance or money is now being paid for by the Federal Government – not by state welfare programs. Let’s not even mention WBushies Drug Bill for U.S. – since he didn’t provide funding for it, it must not cost U.S. anything!

   There is a reason that taxes in Canada, Germany, France, the UK and Scandinavia are much higher than for U.S.; and why and how they receive “free” heath care and we do not. Go back to where The Hansens came from Steve, and ask them how your ancestor’s medical system works. While there in the Land of the Hansens check out how long they live, and how wealthy THEY are compared to the Hansens living in your Home of the Free of “Socialized Medicine”.

   What you also, quite unforgivably, forgot to mention is the well known, even by you, fact – that the costs of ALL types of medical care have risen far faster than everything else. Well, except for unemployment at the end, finally, of W’s term in (y)our office.

   IF – and you do it, bcuz you are good at it – you back out the inflated cost of medical care, down to the level that others – say they pay in German or the Land of the Hansens – and we used to pay for the same procedures, for say birth, back then, WHAT does the Federal imbalance look like now/then?

   If we eliminate the cost/coverage of all cosmetic surgery – such as your wives’, lovers’ and children’s (not mine, we don’t have any) bigga whatevers (would you believe botox lips?) and all the excess “end of life care costs”, what does the Federal imbalance look like then/now?

   Or maybe like the Professorial Ryan, you do not believe that all men (and a few more women than U.S.) are endowed with “The Right to Life”, and Liberty (from having to pay for all of it out of pocket?) and the Pursuit of Happiness = the Right to own guns that we all can use to kill all our GD spouses (then politician and lawyers?) that truly deserve it. Under Ryan, is not “living” no longer an entitlement? Who even needs “Death Panels” – in order to kill all Those People off?

   On the other hand, maybe we should get rid of all economists who make specious arguments? Go Figure-atively, of course.

2. JGB, my point in this article was that budget balancing will fail if we approach it as simply cutting expenditures. My point was “without a massive rework of entitlement methodology, stopping the debt growth is impossible”.

   Your point was “back out the inflated cost of medical care, down to the level that others – say they pay in German or the Land of the Hansens – and we used to pay for the same procedures, for say birth, back then, WHAT does the Federal imbalance look like now/then”.

   Seems like we are saying the same thing. Simply cutting entitlement spending will hurt the weakest – but we cannot keep going the way we are going either with the obvious divergence in costs from the tax base (wage earners).

   One of the larger reasons for the USA’s rapidly increasing costs – tort laws -has not been addressed. We must revisit the USA’s delivery systems methodology. This should be a slow process – and should not start with a 1500 page document nobody read.

   These issues cannot be solved by 02August – and I am outraged that congress votes for budgets and regulations – and then is surprised about budget busting. There are no clean hands in Congress.

   There was no political statement in this article – both democrats and republicans are flat lying to your face about what is going on in the debt ceiling debate. Hearing any of the rhetoric on msnbc or fox will make you dumber.

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