US budget deficit down more than 31% in first 6 months of FY2014

[ag]

Actually, the Congressional GOP are acting like anorexics.

Every fat child who's denied cake thinks he's being starved to death.

Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Welfare, SNAP, and so forth are mainly pure fat. About 20% of our economy is pure fat, depending on the social spending habits of the state in question. We've been converting economic muscle to fat for decades, and now our economy requires constant stimulus to produce the output and public funding we require. The economic forecast for federal spending suggests we will be morbidly obese in about 1 decade, as we continue converting economic muscle into entitlement pork.

Explaining government nutritional science to American liberals is like trying to fell Ironbark with a dull spoon. Of course liberals think Republicans are anorexics. Anyone who stands between them and the buffet is fascist pig, who hates women, minorities, and social justice. Meanwhile, in the real world, the US economy is still slumping along, which is not what the rest of the world expected when they promised not to devalue their currencies.

Wow... funny considering you were the one saying not to expect coherent arguments from liberals... and you drop that on us.

Do we have another Wonkish on our hands?

It is coherent. Repulsvie, of course, but coherent. There is no reason to consider the author a stupid person - he is simply a not very decent one.

[ag]

Doesn't that have everything to do with ideology though? That whole "starve the beast" mentality of manufacturing a crisis that you can claim to have a solution to?

It's basic budgetary/economic science and relatively uncontroversial normative evaluations of utility or public good. The US federal government spends $3,300 per capita on healthcare. With healthcare funding, the government managed to cover about 1/3 of the population. Almost none of the 1/3 are workers. In Australia, you spend roughly $3,800 per capita (public and private, PPP$). Your Medicare system covers everyone, particularly people who work, and Australians have access to subsidized, cost-controlled private insurance through Medibank (public option). Australia also has subsidized prescription drugs for all. 

Consider the sloth of our government healthcare bureaucrats, then ask yourself if withdrawing funding is starving the beast. They are so sedentary, it's difficult to tell if they are still alive. For what they are being fed, a competent national government could deliver healthcare for everyone, yet DC can't make it happen without raising taxes and fees on the American people. American progressives are just dicking around. It's how they operate. It's what they do. They invent new ways to take money without lifting a finger on behalf of the people. When they get caught, they point to the heartless conservatives. It works every time.

What American would believe that our system needs more funding? Only those who are voting to give away other people's money.

Avoid budget propaganda in the future, too. See the debt between 2004-2008? The Bush administration ran deficits without increase debt/GDP ratio. If deficits are acting as a growth multiplier, tax cuts are not increasing the national debt. When you see that kind of politically-motivated analysis, you can throw out all of their forecasts.

Ok. So, you just came out for both the single-payer universal public coverage AND the mandatory purchase of private insurance (with recusers penalized through the tax system). Because both are integral (and, most would argue, indispensible) features of the Australian healthcare system. I will keep that in mind.

[ag]

Ok. So, you just came out for both the single-payer universal public coverage AND the mandatory purchase of private insurance (with recusers penalized through the tax system). Because both are integral (and, most would argue, indispensible) features of the Australian healthcare system. I will keep that in mind.

You can put me down as saying that we already pay for most of those services, but we get none of them.

And you believe it is because Australian bureaucrats are more efficient than their American colleagues? Want to buy Brooklyn Bridge from me?