Deficit

ARDMORE, Pa. - Wednesday was a beautiful day at the Merion Golf Club. Soft clouds, perfect temperature, gently cooling breezes. It was also the day before the U.S. Golf Assn., the diabolical mastermind of the U.S. Open, hands 150 players blindfolds and offers each a final puff on a cigarette. The 113th edition of this annual golf agony is meant, as always, to make the greatest golfers in the world feel as if they are wearing starched underwear. Mike Davis, executive director of the USGA, summed up nicely Wednesday morning.

Re "Deficit extremists, blind to data, are doing active economic harm," Column, June 12 It is so refreshing to read Michael Hiltzik's explanation of how Congress' ill-timed obsession with deficit reduction actually retards economic growth. Other priorities, especially job creation, deserve much greater emphasis. But Hiltzik makes another valuable point that merits wider discussion: With current interest rates so low, this is an ideal time to start digging ourselves out of our backlog in infrastructure maintenance.

We're at the point where any San Diego Chargers victory can be summarized in two words. This goes back to Nov. 19, when between updates I saw a 24-7 San Diego deficit against Denver turn into a 35-27 Chargers victory and I text-messaged a friend to ask what happened. My buddy's reply: "LT happened." Flash-forward to Sunday, when the Chargers had to deal with a strong Oakland Raiders defensive effort, a shaky performance by quarterback Philip Rivers and a 14-7 Raiders lead in the fourth quarter.

The Angels look like a lost cause, with a 28-38 record, an 11 1/2-game American League West deficit and 9 1/2-game wild-card deficit entering Thursday, and their marquee free-agent addition muddling his way through a dismal season. They haven't lost their cause, though. They're not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. There are plenty of games against Oakland and Texas to make up ground in the division. They have 96 games left to make a run. But what motivated them April 1 might not drive them today, and that's not necessarily a bad thing entering Friday night's game against the New York Yankees in Angel Stadium.

In a office decorated with Chinese art and diagrams of body parts, Dr. George Ma cares for more than 4,000 patients. Nearly three-quarters are covered by Medi-Cal, the state's public insurance program for low-income Californians, and Ma said he receives $10 a month to treat most of them. This summer, when California makes a controversial 10% cut to Medi-Cal rates, he could get paid less. Ma said he didn't go into safety net medicine for the money, but he worries that the reductions will make it even harder for his patients to get medication, medical equipment and appointments with specialists.

June 6, 1944, deficit: $50 billion. June 6, 1994, deficit: $500 billion. SAM PRATT Temecula

State lawmakers are scheduled to vote Thursday on a budget proposal that would close California's $19.1-billion deficit partly by: Assuming funds from Washington ? $5.3 billion Cutting public school funds ? $3.1 billion Reducing state workers' pay and benefits ? $1.5 billion Assuming tax collections based on nonpartisan budget analyst's projections ? $1.4 billion Suspending business tax break ? $1.2 billion Cutting prisons budget ? $1.1 billion Selling state buildings ?

The U.S. economy is improving, yet Congress seems still to be in the grip of the delirium that shrinking the deficit in the near term is still a matter of paramount urgency. That's what's prevented lawmakers from dealing with their real task, which is to jolt the miserable jobs recovery into a higher gear and lift the budget sequester, one of the outstanding examples of mass insanity the country has ever seen. Consider the sequester as exhibit A. That's the package of mandated budget cuts enacted as part of the deal to raise the debt limit in 2011.

In a office decorated with Chinese art and diagrams of body parts, Dr. George Ma cares for more than 4,000 patients. Nearly three-quarters are covered by Medi-Cal, the state's public insurance program for low-income Californians, and Ma said he receives $10 a month to treat most of them. This summer, when California makes a controversial 10% cut to Medi-Cal rates, he could get paid less. Ma said he didn't go into safety net medicine for the money, but he worries that the reductions will make it even harder for his patients to get medication, medical equipment and appointments with specialists.

CHICAGO - The Kings used to win road games, and not just by the score of 2-1 or 3-2. Really. In fact, one was here in Chicago at the United Center on March 25 in the regular season and they scored five goals, the last time they recorded such an impressive output. That win in Chicago was two days after the Kings suffered a loss at home against Vancouver. Then for 75 days the Kings were unbeatable at home until Thursday night, when they weren't anymore. Now the show moves to the road where they've found it nearly impossible to win during the playoffs.

Adrian Gonzalez said the Dodgers' 8-7 victory over the Angels on Monday night could change the course of the season. Manager Don Mattingly was also hopeful that would be the case. "That," Mattingly said, "was a good game. " The source of the sudden optimism was the erasing of a 6-1 deficit in the opening game of the Freeway Series at Dodger Stadium, something completely out of character for the last-place Dodgers. Until this night, the largest deficit the Dodgers had overcome on their way to a victory was three runs.

Having childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder could lead to a life of obesity, even if ADHD symptoms disappear in adulthood, a new study shows. The study, which followed up on 207 middle-class men who had been diagnosed with ADHD as children, found that some 33 years after their diagnosis, their body mass index was significantly higher than those without ADHD. Their propensity to become obese was twice that of adults who were never diagnosed with ADHD, according to the study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

SAN JOSE - Live by the five-on-three and lose on the five-on-four. Two days after the Kings took advantage of a two-man advantage to rally from a one-goal deficit in a dizzying comeback against the Sharks in Game 2, they found themselves staring straight at a five-on-three disadvantage here Saturday night. They escaped the five-on-three but could not survive the five-on-four. The Sharks won it at 1:29 into overtime on Logan Couture's power-play goal, giving San Jose a 2-1 victory in Game 3 at HP Pavilion.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's proposed mix of tax hikes and spending cuts would reduce future budget deficits more quickly than under current laws, according to a report issued Friday that could rekindle the dormant budget wars in Washington. The outlook from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office comes as the government is set to reach its debt limit on Saturday, forcing the White House and Congress back to the negotiating table to work out a long-term budget plan that raises taxes, cuts spending -- or some combination of the two. Already, Washington is on track to have a substantially lower deficit -- $642 billion -- this fiscal year than experts had expected, the budget office reported earlier this week.

Trevor Lewis, the mellowest of the low-key Kings, is hardly given to outsized statements or outlandish proclamations. You can understand why he was out of sorts after his game-winning goal in the Kings' 4-3 victory over the San Jose Sharks, a blow that completed a dizzying comeback. The Kings scored two late power-play goals within 22 seconds to steal Game 2 on Thursday night at Staples Center and take a 2-0 series lead. "I think I almost passed out in the celebration," Lewis said.