There is outrage today on Capitol Hill over the upwardly-revised costs of Bush’s prescription drug benefit. It’s going to cost $720 billion over the next ten years rather than the $400 billion Congress believed when it passed the legislation in late 2003.
Why the discrepancy? A simple accounting trick. The $400 billion was for the first ten years after the bill was passed – 2004 to 2013. The $720 billion is for 2006 to 2015 – the first ten years the benefit is in existence.
Someone should point out loudly and with dramatic emphasis that this is the exact same accounting malarkey the administration is using to sell Social Security.
The Administration is claiming it will cost $754 billion over the next ten years to transition to private accounts. The catch? The phase-in wouldn’t begin until 2009 and wouldn’t fully take effect until 2011. Estimates for the first ten years the program is in existence are closer to $1.3 trillion dollars. And around $3.5 trillion for the ten years after that.
Red State – Blue State. Maybe it all comes down to your philosophical conception of time.