Let's Pretend

Here come the jesters, one, two, three
It's all part of my fantasy
--Bad Company

Proponents of the health care bill point to today's CBO estimate that the deficit will be cut by $138 billion as validation of the economics soundness of the plan. Of course, given some of the eyepopping tactics exhibited by this bill's backers, cheerleading such fantasy numbers should not be surprising.

Setting aside issues of impartiality of the Congressional Budget Office, inquiring minds are likely asking a few questions, such as:

Has there ever been a large scale government spending program that, once enacted, has even actually cut the deficit? (no)

What happens to the scope of government spending programs once they are enacted? (the scope always expands, as does commensurate spending)

What is the CBO's track record for accurately forecasting costs/savings of future govt spending programs? (don't know but would bet their 'margin for error' is pretty high--and that their error has a directional bias)

Assuming the CBO estimate is accurate (humor me), what is the annual reduction to the deficit? ($138 billion/10 = $12.8 billion/yr, which is a rounding error in a deficit that approaches $2 trillion annually)

Forgetting about the over/under on the deficit, let's consider the forecast cost: $940 billion. That's nearly $1 trillion out of the people's pockets.

By the time we're done anteing up the price tag on this fantasy will surely be higher.