Can we trust government cost estimates?

No. They are never accurate. War. Peace. Highways. Social Security. CO2. Schools. Even pork (earmarks) aren't accurate. Never. Does the government ever "contain" costs. No. In today's Review and Outlook in the WSJ:

Start with Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that its first-year costs would be $238 million. Instead it hit more than $1 billion, and costs have kept climbing.

Thanks in part to expansions promoted by California's Henry Waxman, a principal author of the current House bill, Medicaid now costs 37 times more than it did when it was launched—after adjusting for inflation. Its current cost is $251 billion, up 24.7% or $50 billion in fiscal 2009 alone, and that's before the health-care bill covers millions of new beneficiaries.

When our legislators get to Washington, or Columbus, or Springfield, or Albany, or Sacramento, they forget it's real money taxed from real working people. To them it's funny money; Monopoly money. All they can do is pass legislation that will 1) fulfill the dreams of their party's philosophy, and 2) win voters back home, who understandably want some of their money back in exchange for sending that person to Congress. When the Congress person's term is up, they slip into "think-tanks" or become lobbyists, and continue on the government dole. Besides, you can't predict what's going to happen in the medical field. They estimated 11,000 renal patients for Medicare and got almost 400,000. The only thing that has come in below projections is the Bush-Kennedy drug plan. We know competition brings down prices, but Democrats don't want that. We know tax cuts induce investments which provide jobs, but Democrats don't want that. They want control and power.

Is this the change we were promised?

Have you seen the fawning press stories about Obama's apology for "messing up?" The media threatened and whined for 6 years that Bush should apologize for freeing the Iraqi people even with the bad intelligence he inherited on WMD from the previous administration. But oh by golly, here was Obama apologizing within the first 2 weeks for doing something stupid--appointing Daschle on the heels of Geithner. Oh, he's just so wonderful. He admitted to a mistake! Now if he'd just admit the stimulus package is a total failure and will plunge us even deeper into economic chaos.

"The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction." Charles Krauthammer, continue reading Link

More GAD--Geithner and Daschle

They apologized for tax mistakes to get their jobs; they really aren't crooks with friends in high places, they're just stupid and inept. Not so the same deal for the little guy with little problems.

My son who manages an automotive quick serve at a dealership received a very threatening letter about his taxes last week. He said he'd mail it to me so I could scan it for my blog, but I'll try to reconstruct for you the double standard for the working stiff and the ones stiffing us in Congress and the Oval Office. The notice said that if he didn't comply immediately he'd be in deep doo-doo.

HE OWES $.50--YES, FIFTY CENTS!!!! No forgiveness for the little guy. The computers can't even be programed to save the government money by not sending notices that cost more to send than to collect.

GAD! Geithner and Daschle.