1.2 trillion.
Context: Bush passes a bill that will include a prescription drug benefit in Medicare. 13 conservative Republican reps say they won't vote for it if it's over $400 billion over the next 10 years. The CBO's estimate has it at $395 billion.
The bill passes, narrowly, after a ton of badgering by GOP leadership. Democrats say that the bill is designed to give the maximum possible profits to drug companies.
Two months after the bill passes, it's revealed that the cost will be $119 billion more. Guy at the CBO had done this estimate while the bill was still being debated, but says that he was threatened with being fired if he revealed it.
Now, budget figures have just come out with another revision of the total cost. Scott McLellan says it will be $720 billion over that period for the federal government, though the cumulative cost will be $1.2 trillion.
As far as I can tell from a first, quick reading of the article, the $300 million difference in those last figures is what the states will have to pay, or participants in the program, or a combination.
From reading another article, it seems like the cost of the previous estimate was kept down by including two years where the program wasn't in place, so it only accounted for eight years of spending (it's standard for 10-year periods to be used to estimate the cost of programs - if you see a headline "Program X to cost $50 billion," odds are it means over 10 years).
I really don't know what to say. This is just so... not good news.
Context: Bush passes a bill that will include a prescription drug benefit in Medicare. 13 conservative Republican reps say they won't vote for it if it's over $400 billion over the next 10 years. The CBO's estimate has it at $395 billion.
The bill passes, narrowly, after a ton of badgering by GOP leadership. Democrats say that the bill is designed to give the maximum possible profits to drug companies.
Two months after the bill passes, it's revealed that the cost will be $119 billion more. Guy at the CBO had done this estimate while the bill was still being debated, but says that he was threatened with being fired if he revealed it.
Now, budget figures have just come out with another revision of the total cost. Scott McLellan says it will be $720 billion over that period for the federal government, though the cumulative cost will be $1.2 trillion.
As far as I can tell from a first, quick reading of the article, the $300 million difference in those last figures is what the states will have to pay, or participants in the program, or a combination.
From reading another article, it seems like the cost of the previous estimate was kept down by including two years where the program wasn't in place, so it only accounted for eight years of spending (it's standard for 10-year periods to be used to estimate the cost of programs - if you see a headline "Program X to cost $50 billion," odds are it means over 10 years).
I really don't know what to say. This is just so... not good news.