Ron Paul Exposes The Deficit "Plan" Lies: "Cuts Are Illusory, Not From Current Amounts Spent But From Projected Spending Increases"
Ron Paul slams it right out of the ballpark.
One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.
No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the "cuts" being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.
The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family's income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.
In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of "cuts" that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to "cut". It would only take us 5 years to "cut" $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.
A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply returned to that year's spending levels, which would hardly be austere, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending, and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.
We pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn't have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.
In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger "cut" than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.
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lies?
say it ain't so Barack, Boener, Reid & McConnell, say it ain't so
Wow, like they never pulled this before. I suppose there's a surplus in there if they just look hard enough.
You tell 'em, Ron! Yep, it is amazing what they achieve just through accounting gimmicks and definition changes (SS cuts are due to change in definition) alone!
America has a leadership vaccuum, and honestly, I don't know if it will be resolved with anything short of complete disintegration. Sometimes you look around and the return to Feudalism is just getting closer and closer.
Check out the latest from the Capital Research Institute "The Sad Truth Regarding America's Deficit Reduction":
http://www.capitalresearchinstitute.org
"Although Congress has not yet passed the ‘debt deal’ it certainly has all the looks of a done deal about it. So lets cut to the chase. America has a debt problem. This year America spent $1.5 trillion more than it collected in revenues. That’s $1500 billion. This year alone. America’s total debt, as we have all had drilled into us these last few days, is currently about $14 trillion dollars. So what did Congress decide the solution to this problem should be? On the one hand they kicked and screamed at each other, like siblings fighting over who gets the remote control. But on the other hand, it is clear in hindsight the politicians have no appreciation for how serious the problems actually are (and they will only get worse, until they are seriously addressed). The plan before them today allows for the debt ceiling to be raised (as if the debt ceiling is the problem, not the debt) and deficits to be reduced. Yes, you read that right, deficits will not be eliminated, they will be reduced.
So that means…. The total National Debt will continue to increase. So the same group of people who vote wage increases for themselves have now decided that Social Security should be calculated in a new way. A new way that shortchanges SS recipients, and doesn’t accurately track inflation, but hey, the government will save money.
The real kicker is in the spending cuts. Very little, if any, has to occur straight away. Almost all the cuts are ‘yet to be determined’ and occur at some point in the future..."
Spot on, spot on. When this whole game comes to an end, it will destroy peoples belief in the govt. for a long time. Also I agree with you also about Feudilism, I see it coming and it will be a nasty little surprise for alot of us.
By appealing to tons of bullshit about the Constitution and other patriotic crap, Congressman Ron Paul is able to seduce his brute and ignorant constituency while doing nothing in Congress (a clever way to make easy money). Besides that, Americans are a bunch of stupid animals easy to manipulate and subdue. The sooner the US economy collapses the better, so these brutes will finally learn NOT to live beyond their means.
Stick to wanking. You seem to be pretty good at that.
Speaking of ignorant, could you at least expand your vocabulary a bit? A little variety can go a long ways toward furthering your trolling effectively. Otherwise, you're going to fail to attract the arrow-clickers and simply vanish in obscurity.
If nothing else, at least have the decency to find other sources to cut and paste from.
kthxbye
A down arrow is just not rewarding enough....FUCK YOU Wanker...Ahh, that's a little better.
I don't usually respond to such jibberish bullshit, BUT not today. You fucking dildo-headed dipshit! YOU and your like minded minion morons are the reason WE, the "enlightened patriots", are fighting in one way or another, to take back OUR country. YOU are just a pile of shit in the middle of the road to avoid. RON PAUL for PRESIDENT! He may not be perfect, but he's a better Man than what the fuck WE'VE got now.......asshole....................
Wanker, your still sulking that John Mccain lost...get over it.
Wanklord, it seems to me you're criticizing Mr. Paul on one hand by saying he doesn't accomplish anything, but then you're complaining that Americans should finally learn not to live beyond their means. By pointing out that the cuts being proposed are, in a lot of cases, illusory, isn't Mr. Paul trying to educate the very public you are maligning? There are certainly some things that Mr. Paul stands for which I do not agree, but, by and large, on economic matters, he seems to very much incorporate my personal philosophy. Of course, since I haev some level of agreement with him, he'll never be elected to the White House. However, unless political leaders like Mr. Paul continue to be voices of sanity in terms of what's going on, the "brutes" will only hear what the likes of MSNBC and Fox News want them to hear.
Also, what's wrong with appealing to the Constitution and being patriotic? Last I read, the elites haven't shredded the last vestiges of the Constitution (yet), so it is still the law of the land.
I do think you are right in that my countrymen are, for the most part, easy to manipulate. The vast majority are more interested in Jersey Shore or American Idol then they are in the economic future of the nation.
Wanklord, I understand and agree with most of what you are saying. It's really too late for anyone to do anything other than delay the collapse. I will vote for Ron Paul as always in the primary (I won't send him any $$), and he will lose. Then he will retire (already announced that). He fought like Don Quixote during his long political career, talking a lot and accomplished little. Our Country has never been run by politicians or the people, TPTB will decide our fate after extracting as much wealth as they can. I am saddened that my teenage boys will have to live in Mexico North rather than the USA (illegals here in AZ are moving back to Mexico for a better life). It sure sucks.
Hasten the Collapse, OBAMA 2012
Would donating around $15 to Ron Paul's campaign really bust your budget?
Money talks, bullsh!t walks!
Ron Paul's criticism has been circulated widely by Paul Ryan for weeks now. The fraudulent way the "cuts" are calculated has always been in the Reid bill from the very beginning. The rating agencies will ignore it. BTFD, even now.
Intraday low of 1274.73 has been set on S&P. Rally into the close. For those of us lucky enough to see the low and buy the SPY 127 calls at 1275, $$$ into the close. Kleptocracy 1 : Democracy 0.
ZH is correct in its analysis, but one must trade the market's cynical inversion of ZH's analysis. In its own way, market is even more negative than ZH.
1:00 PM scorecard.
S&P -1.07%
Silver -.70%
AAPL + 1.12%
Momo high P/E net.bubble stocks like TZOO + 3.88%
Kleptocracy 1: Democracy 0
1:22 pm.
Silver -1.57% Uh oh.
Are you the new Robo? His posts are at least funny.
I want to see it bounce off of support at $38.50.
meanwhile Ryan (Scott Brown in drag) is saying the Obama plan will pass
Yup, gonna pass. Even a fierce critic like Ryan confirms it. For better or worse. And the good thing is: rinse and repeat right before Thanksgiving on a nice low-volume, high-algo day when the super committee has its deadline.
Even the lefties hate it.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-2nd-us-representative-from-illinois-to-vote-against-debt-deal-20110801,0,7476333.story
HOLY SAINT-ENRON! PLEASE SAY IT ISN'T SO!
DON'T THESE PEOPLE HAVE ANY CODE OF CONDUCT?
I lol'd.
Walmart is rolling back the prices of Vaseline and blindfolds...
Just lie-back and think of England.
Thank God government subsidies for the ball gags aren't scheduled to be cut until 2018.
All I want to know is how much raise these lawmakers are going to get this year !! I know the whole proposal thing is dog and pony show anyway.
Tom Coburn said the same thing on the senate floor........The Bankers are still in charge.........put them all in GITMO.........
Ron Paul for president, too bad the bankster lobby, the insdustrial military complex and those stupid americans who believe in flying unicorns and being positive won't give this man a chance...
Surely we ZHers aren't the only ones with any sense in this country...oh wait, American Idol is a top show and everyone actually cared about Casey Anthony and Amy Winehouse. Shit! Can we all move to Texas and just secede? Maybe Alaska??? Panama? Any other suggestions?
How about a peaceful Million Gun March on Washington, as an expression of our 2nd Amendment rights? And of the fact that we are really pissed at those assholes. All of 'em.
Are you kidding? Rachael Maddows' head would explode. Nope, too messy.
I liked your other avatar better. Obama is god.
Hmm, you actually introduce yet another incentive to march!
Heck, I'll clean up her mess if it need be.
Sow
whatever makes you think we want you or anyone else to come to Texas?
please don't. all these new people come here bringing their bad ideas that didn't work in the places they left behind. it's like human locusts, producing nothing but always looking for a new place to be fed.
stay where you are and fix that.
Though I'm not a Texan, but rather living in SW VA -- I share the sentiment in spades. We country folk are very very sick of having city pollution and bad laws required for bad people pushed on us. We're sick of exporting our resources and taxes and getting crap in return. We're sick of concentrating power and "we know what's best for you" statements. No, you don't even know what's best for the current me, much less all the different places I alone have occupied in life.
Sure, in DC or NYC if you swing your arm, you'll probably hit and hurt someone. Where I live you're unlikely to, saying the very least. Why do I have to submit to laws appropriate for you, but not me? Why do I have to pay the costs for this sick system set up by such people?
Interestingly, I also have the same take (I think) on immigration. We have mexican illegals up here -- to even find this place to do backbreaking orchard work, they have to be pretty enterprising, and frankly, they are no trouble to us. But what is sick is when immigrants overflow a place, and as you said, try to re-implement what didn't work where they came from -- which is the very reason they came here, to get away from that. And the Mexcans aren't the first to be guilty of that one. Chinatown anyone? And plenty other examples.
You want to come here and share my dream, well, goddammit, share it, learn the language, the laws, work, pay taxes -- you can't leave some of those out and be OK with me. If you only came here for the better street corners to sell drugs and shoot one another on - stay home and do it there. And don't blame me for making a few guns available, I'm not the source of the huge majority of them - they are using arms dealers....not gun stores. That's only the very small time.
The ATF is the major arms supplier to the Mexican drug cartels. This keeps the "American origin" high when Mexican authorities seize drug cartel weapons, and it helps justify higher ATF budgets.
HoofHearted @12:47: Ask Tyler for that terrific Expatriation manual he shared with us last year.
Ron Paul 'The High Tide 2012'. Spread the word with this great 1-min presentation (Should be easy enough on the sheeple's digestive system)
American greatness has passed
The last thirty years were a blast
But then GREED bought the votes
With its fresh-printed notes
And wealth based on debt doesn`t last
of course. only rubes are unaware of the tricks. that's why you only hear about a $1.5 trillion budget deficit because the truth of $5.5 trillion in budget deficits using gaap accounting is quite too much to bear.
One green ping for RP from me please.
One ping only please.
Unfortunately no one will listen to Ron Paul except those that already listen to him. At least he gives us insight into congress....something I don't hear others doing.
papaswamp @12:40: Those people asleep at the wheel are crashing their cars right about now and waking up in the ER. Maybe now they'll listen....
hey oBLAHma! you will NOT be re-elected! do you understand? i'm canadian, but i will enter the US illegally and vote you out! U R FINISHED PUNK!!!! thank the lord tyler removes all IP addresses!
sabra,
Well that's great, but in case you had not noticed the Congress passed a law making your ISP,in and out logs all to be recorded, along with every CC# you use, Debit card, etc,etc, and sites we visit..........................and are required to retain for one year.
So that means, all your and our info is being stored..INDEFINITELY.
ISP providers automatically store your emails................even before this legislation was passed.
These guys lie so often and so smoothly they no longer know what the truth. In their warped sense of reality they really think this agreement is a "cut". They are like blind men in a fog bank of lies groping around looking for anything to grab ahold of and maul. It is truly government by zombies.
"35% more for our military today than we did 10years ago for the same capability" Is this in inflation adjusted dollars? Probably not. I'd say we are doing pretty well then BECAUSE THE VALUE OF THE DOLLAR HAS PROBABLY SHRUNK AT LEAST THAT MUCH!!!!!
Tea Party containment if no real cuts were negotiated. Obama appears to have a mild win with no real cuts to current spending and by not having to go through this again early in 2012. Boehner was looking a little lame last week, but recovered with Bush tax breaks in place and an atta-boy from big oil. We have taken a step back toward a two party system with this deal.
Our federal government is a stage full of bankster puppets, and we are supposed to be surprised by their singing and dancing?
He uses Italian, German, and Japanese cars in his analogy.
Ron Paul is clearly un-american and alligned with the axis powers.
/sarcoff
I noticed that too.. LMAO .. Of course, I think Hondas are as much built in the US as any other..
Is this Paul guy a communist? Why knock what our leaders are trying to do? Too many arm chair cornerbacks spoils the soup!
Well OK, so Dr. Paul is in the medical field but has never heard that runaway health care costs are the #1 reason for cost escalation. O....K.....
No one has any fucking guts any more. Tell the truth sir: Holding a budget constant while health care costs escalate is not a trivial or painless exercise. It is nothing less than deceitful to suggest otherwise.
I think we need deep, painful cuts in many areas. But they will be painful. It is disappointing to see Ron Paul say it is easy...it undermines his credibility.
More prescription drugs, please. Sorry to have to write this comment. Paul is missing the ball and so is ZH; it's rare but it happens...
Agree. A spending freeze and problems solved? Some maths is missing there. It's the desperation of belief.
"desperation of belief" is very well put! Don't forget, while pointing another finger into Constitution, which has nothing to do with this calamity anyhow.
what? no no, you misread. He acknowledged that we are still in recession and probably wouldn't see the growth that they were estimating, but he was giving them the benefit of the doubt -- if we saw the growth, a spending freeze (keep the budget at 3.7trillion outlays) would result in a balanced budget eventually.
Total bs.
Ron Paul is the first to acknowledge that welfare has to be cut.
He just sees the potential to cut trillions overseas. That is his priority and he is absolutely right about that.
Do some research on RP please.
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/03/ron-paul-on-entitlements-%E2%80%9Ccut-everybody-by-20%E2%80%9D/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9JIwxhRfug
I do plenty of research. I can also read what is in the actual post, by the actual person being discussed:
"In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all."
The above quote is untrue.
You on the other hand made no mention of the substance of my comment and instead discussed other things. How is that helping?
Your quote:
My quote (with sources...)
Now everybody here can judge who did some research an who didn´t...
Wrong again Jim.. RP has offered many solutions to Health care first and foremost by getting the government out.. Again, it's obvious you will not do the research on RP to see where he atually stands and solutions he provides.
I guess you are right in saying his statement isn't true, if you are a fat-cat banker, in our gun for hire military industrial complex, prison for profit industries, or anyone else sucking off the teet of the taxpayer.. get your head out of your ass..
If all y'all are saying is that it doesn't matter what he actually writes on a day when a lot more people might be reading, and must be forgiven for missing the ball this particular time, then OK.
But he still missed it.
Where in the constitution do you see a power which grants the federal government authority to be in the business of health care? Perhaps Ron Paul doesn't understand your perspective because it is an unconstitutional one. It's just a thought. Painful cuts you say? Cut all effing federal government welfare, of all types from corporate to individual, and shove the gawd damned thing back into the box it was meant to be kept within.
Then the spending and debt problems would be VERY easy to resolve--at least from MY perspective as someone who doesn't expect a damned thing from my federal government other than what is constitutionally mandated.
Guts? Read the fucking constitution.
Right. So the skittle shitting unicorns make employee costs go down, and then the cuts are easy and painless.
I am on board with that 100%. That is fine math. Constitutional math too!
Not skittle shitting unicorns--free market forces.
http://mises.org/daily/4276
But you probably won't read it, as you prefer to roll about in your ignorance like a pig rolls in his own shit.
Wait, I am having trouble with your simile. Is it in any way useful or constructive? Are you?
Should be easy enough for even you to understand:
GOVT SUBSIDIES ARE DRIVING UP HEALTH CARE COSTS!
damn right!
"wellfare of the people" it says there the last time I read. At least we are reading different versions?
"wellfare of the people" (sic) isn't in the Constitution, nor is the corrected spelling: "welfare of the people"
If you are referring to the phrase "promote the general welfare", then you are incorrectly interpretting what the founders wrote.
The definition of "welfare" during the time of the writing of the Constitution was:
1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.
2. Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applies to states.
"Welfare" today has the common meaning of something (money, food, etc) handed out by the government.
Contemporary use of welfare is synonymous with the dole.
Not to metion "Promote" does not mean "Provide".
are you sure of the words meaning "back in the days"? lol
Oh great! Now we will have a self-appointed class of "interpreters" whose "gifts" include knowing and telling the rest of us dopes what Founding Fathers really meant. May I kiss the ring now?
This is exactly WHY any reference to Constitution is irrelevant, people interpret it any way they want. According to our laws, only the Supreme Court has the final "interpretational" powers.
Btw, I've never been on welfare, and I agree that the program is abused. However, that being said, our neocon ruined economy IS "calamity or evil", so I don't see any issues with government stepping in and handing out foodstamps these days or whatnot. As far as we can afford multiple wars, we can also afford feeding people.
But isn't it fun when someone from another country schools you on YOUR Constitution? From Russia with a chuckle...
what schooling, russian? all i see is you asserting that two wrongs make a right.
care to explain?
Well tovarich, they are not always wrong:
“Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States Monday of living beyond its means "like a parasite" on the global economy and said dollar dominance was a threat to the financial markets.
"They are living beyond their means and shifting a part of the weight of their problems to the world economy," Putin told the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi while touring its lakeside summer camp”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-russia-putin-usa-idUSTRE77052R20110801
He's onto something here
A simple reading of the papers published by the founders would show you in a fairly clear light what they intended this government to be.
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." - Thomas Jefferson
"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." - Thomas Jefferson
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson
"I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." - Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson
"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." - Thomas Jefferson
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." - Thomas Jefferson
"Never spend your money before you have earned it." - Thomas Jefferson
"The Constitution...is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please" - Thomas Jefferson
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious" - Thomas Jefferson
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
"Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions." - James Madison
"In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will." - Alexander Hamilton
The government IS the problem. The government has morphed from the form created by the founders into this overbearing monstrosity that we have today. I would wager any amount that the founders would agree that this government is NOT what they created. In fact, they might actually take up arms again to throw off the shackles.
To get a feel for what the founders meant, you must read what they wrote on the subject of government. Read the what Jefferson, Hamilton and others wrote, it's really very interesting. I think it's been shown that they generally believed that too little government is preferable to too much government.
We cannot afford multiple wars.
Are you confused here?
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which
granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money
of their constituents." - James Madison
"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." - James Madison
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are
the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of
religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county
and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their
own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout
the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the
regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the
highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police,
would be thrown under the power of Congress... Were the power of Congress to be
established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations,
and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the
people of America." - James Madison
If you want to live in a third world country go ahead!
You can move to Costa Rica and hire your own security force...
Don't try and turn the #1 country in the world into one big unemployment line, by shutting down the government.
The only thing worse than our crazy government is everything else out there.
"""""""""""""More prescription drugs, please. Sorry to have to write this comment. Paul is missing the ball and so is ZH; it's rare but it happens...""""""""""""
haha wow Jim, you know nothing of Dr. Paul. He has condemned the US tax break for employers to pay for individuals' medical coverage. This is a pay raise that we would all see in our pay checks if not for this subsidy for the insurance companies and your employer. That stupid government decision has unintended consequence of allowing providers to charge the insurance companies ridiculous prices because their customers (YOU the patient) do not Shop around, you don't give 2 sH*TS what you pay for your care because its billing your insurance, ... seriously man think about this for 2 f-qing seconds, and tell me if it makes any sense to you whatsover Jim the Socialist from MN
We are not discussing the costs of health care for private employers. We are discussing the federal budget. Cost per FTE employee are increasing rapidly. The cuts being discussed are not trivial and being smug isn't helping the discussion.
I am simply saying that Ron Paul has an opportunity to be serious and thoughtful instead of taking himself out of the debate. The current situation is the moral equivalent of war, and how do you think the 'thought leaders' (not the psychopaths in actual power) are responding? Not well, I see.
Paul can do better. Not an attack. Just an opinion.
Jim,
When you marginalize someone that is trying to address the root of (or real) problems we face and even more importantly, our children will face, you are in a sense attacking him and his base..
Some of us are tired of band-aids.. We actually want a better life for our children and are willing to sacrafice for it..
Well, if we are discussing the actual health care costs to the government from government employees, then the problem is yet again very simple. Less government employees means less costs. Wow, that was hard...
This kind of trickery happens in every government on the planet, the most fascinating trick i ever heard was from Douglas Holtz-Eakin when he was head of the CBO "under bush" - a beautiful little scam of projection it was too, the trick was to project a measure of wage inflation, then alter the budget on the premise that the wage inflation would bring x amount of people up through a particular tax bracket! Genius, bankers have nothing on politicians.