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Triple

… that’s how much more the Build America Bond program is costing in its first year than it was anticipated in budgeting:

Build America Bonds are also expanding federal costs much faster than expected. Over the life of the up to 30-year bonds, Uncle Sam could owe up to $90 billion in interest. The program’s first-year cost of $1.38 billion already exceeds what the White House estimated it would cost over three years.

I’m sure that was a wee little error. Not like there is any controversy on budget projections or anything like that.

2 Responses to “Triple”

  1. Harry says:

    Were this not so serious, it would be funny.

    Some time I wish Wintercow would offer his thoughts on dynamic scoring, a principle which has been given definition at least for thirty-five years. I find it amazing that anybody doubts a self-evident fallacy that everyone talking about economics should ignore human behavior.

    The sun comes up in the East, right?

  2. jb says:

    A sobering thought regarding the magnitude of current federal spending:

    “Perhaps the president is thinking that he can use the impending fiscal crisis as an excuse to raise taxes, and that the increased revenue will enable him to fund the health-care benefit. Here’s a fact he might want to consider. The biggest tax increase in American history was in 1993. If such a tax increase were passed today, and assuming it didn’t cripple the economy, it would produce $71 billion annually in additional revenue — enough to fund the government’s current borrowing for just ten days.

    In college, I had an economics professor who liked to remind his students of an important principle of human behavior: “The crew of the Titanic stopped doing dishes when the ship hit the iceberg.” It’s a sound principle, but it assumes that the crew actually recognizes reality. The president and congressional leaders are still working away at the dishes, while the ship is going down.”

    (article by Jim Talent in National Review (nationalreview.com)

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