That is the title of a new book by my friend and colleague Don Taylor, who also regularly blogs over at The Incidental Economist. I have been hearing about this book for quite some time now, and I am happy it is finally out.
In his prologue, Don writes:
“The summer of 2011 has not seen a debt crisis, but instead a political crisis manufactured by congressional Republicans for political leverage. There are many investors willing to loan the US government money at extremely low interest rates. Since world War II, the debt ceiling has been raised dozens of times, but these debates will never again be the same. And since the debt ceiling is denominated in nominal dollars, it will have to be raised continuously in the foreseeable future regardless of what policies we enact.
Any short term economic intervention and investment seems crowded out by the noise of the debt ceiling debate and the quietness of the action so far undertaken to address the nature of the long-term problem. We need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, but now we appear unable to do either.”
Both because Don is a health policy scholar and because health care-related expenditures occupy such a large proportion of the federal budget, the bulk of the book is dedicated to health spending.