{"id":24124,"date":"2011-01-21T18:35:32","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T18:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/david_leonhardt-the_deficit_we_want\/"},"modified":"2011-01-21T18:35:32","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T18:35:32","slug":"david_leonhardt-the_deficit_we_want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=24124","title":{"rendered":"David Leonhardt&#8211;The Deficit We Want"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have come to believe a story about the deficit that is largely not true.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a comforting story, to be sure. It holds the promise of a painless solution, because it suggests that the country\u2019s huge looming deficits are not really our fault. Instead, they seem to stem from weak-willed politicians, wasteful government programs that do not benefit us and tax avoidance by people we have never met.<\/p>\n<p>In truth, the coming deficits are a result, above all, of the fact that most Americans are scheduled to receive far more in Medicare benefits than they have paid in Medicare taxes. Conservative and liberal economists agree on this point. After Medicare on the list of big, growing budget items come Social Security and the military.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/economix.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/01\/20\/the-deficit-we-want\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have come to believe a story about the deficit that is largely not true. It\u2019s a comforting story, to be sure. It holds the promise of a painless solution, because it suggests that the country\u2019s huge looming deficits are<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=24124\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40,103,670,149,104,584],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-economics-politics","category-aging-the-elderly","category-budget","category-economy","category-health-medicine","category-the-u-s-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}