It just keeps getting worse ...

There are at least 2,500 things wrong with the health care bill being jammed through congress (not so coincidentally that's roughly how many pages it is). But the simplest problem, a starting point if you will, is its' dishonest cost. As we have discussed here Obama, Reid and Pelosi knew full well that for public consumption they needed to hang a price tag on the bill of under a trillion dollars (for ten years). There's something about that number that gets even left of center voters to ask, "how much?" So they pulled a blatant gimmick that would cause both Boss Tweed and Huey P. Long to raise their glass of scotch in pride. They fed the CBO 10 years (2010-2019) worth of new tax revenue, but only 5 years worth of expenditures. In other words the taxes begin in 2010 (presuming it passes), yet the "benefits" do not begin to materialize until 2014. Its a clear manipulation of the bill's cost - 10 years worth of taxes to pay 5 years worth of benefits and presto, its cost is under a trillion bucks. Various respected think tanks like CATO & The American Enterprise Institute have scored a 10 year tax vs 10 year benefit cost ratio as high as $2.5 trillion.

At any rate, there is a more immediate problem here. Say it passes and the taxes begin to accumulate over the roughly 4 1/2 years before the benefits start. Are we to believe that the tax revenue over those first years is going to be "set aside?" Put in an Algorian "lock box?" Of course not. Just like Social Security it will end up in the general fund, and spent. So not only will they start immediately raising taxes to pay for services years away, the money will be used up before those services even begin!

Maybe this time, unlike nearly every other social program in the history of this nation, they will set the money aside ... and maybe Nancy Pelosi will end up as a Playboy centerfold of the month ... but I kind of doubt it.