After We Finish Spending the Money, Then We Can Start Spending More Money

My head hurts. A few Congressman are a tad bit antsy that the cost-estimate for the new prescription drug coverage plan has inched up slightly since Bush originally proposed it. To be precise, it has nearly doubled: from $400 billion at the time of passage, to $534 billion immediately after passage (information, incidentally, the administration knew but suppressed: see the Post article below), to $724 billion today. To be fair, not everyone thinks the pricetag actually will end up being $724 billion. The Washington Post, for example, thinks the ultimate price will actually be $1.2 trillion over the first decade of the program. The $724 billion dollar figure comes out when you factor in some offsetting "savings," but you'll forgive me if I'm starting to get a wee bit skeptical of those sorts of things. Anyway, what is Bush's reaction to the spiraling price of his pet healthcare proposal? According to CNN,

"Bush pledged this week to "deal with the unfunded liabilities of Medicare" once Social Security is overhauled as he has proposed."

So...once we enact a program that will incur trillions of dollars in new debt, then we'll try and fund the skyrocketing debt we've already got? Thus is the mantra of Bush budgeting I guess: Buy now, refuse to pay later.