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Another $320 billion for old people
NYTimes reports that new estimates of the cost of Bush's prescription drug plan are $720 billion over 10 years. Just slightly higher than the $400 billion the White House "predicted" (remember, back when they were suppressing any estimates of higher costs).
And while we're on the subject of the Bush deficits, another few thoughts on why the "50% reduction" is bullshit.
-- costs of the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan are not counted, right? I guess the question of "how do we pay for this" doesn't seem to fly in the Oval Office.
-- the reported Bush deficits are always falsely deflated by the SS surplus, and the annual SS surplus is currently on a growth curve. In other words, the government will borrow more money from SS next year, and even more the year after, and that borrowing will not "count" in the Bush deficit -- even though it will be debt that the government will have to repay (apparently the White House finally figured out that suggesting the gov't will default on bonds is a bad idea).
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