Now that Congress is finished displaying its one unquestionable skill — conniving at ideological extortion, with the household budgets of millions of Americans hanging in the balance — the time has come to calculate the damage done to U.S. fiscal policy by the debt ceiling deal reached this week.

The toll can be measured in several categories. One is the way the debate elevated deficit panic, an entirely fabricated issue in terms of today's policy necessities, to legitimacy. Another is how even within its own fantasy universe the agreement targets spending that isn't a significant problem in the federal budget, while ignoring the chief driver of deficit growth: healthcare costs.

The outstanding irony of the entire debate is that, despite the participants' declared intention not to merely "kick the can down the road," that's what they've done.

http://www.latimes.com/health/healthcare/la-fi-hiltzik-20110803,0,2472202,print.column

I love the writer's style, even if I disagree with his assumptions (but of course he's right on the money regarding budget cost drivers).  I am amused that he continues to place his faith in the same buffoons - that he so capably lampoons - to run health care and to run a retirement system and to do all the other things which would be above the heads of any mortal.  I guess if we just keep electing people we'll eventually get the right bunch that is good enough, smart enough, and selfless enough to do the right things for the right reasons and make it all wonderful for the rest of us (in other words he's still suffering from the fatal conceit).  Too bad he's unwilling to examine all the ways our government has made our health care system to unnecessarily costly.