3.27

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Washington seems to be in chaos at this moment, as no one is sure what is actually in the bill the Democrats have (apparently) agreed on. U.S. News' Washington Whispers column--which, by the way, was a feature of the magazine when I started reading it in the mid-1960s--says that if you want to be able to read the bill, you pretty much have to be a lobbyist: We're receiving E-mails from Capitol Hill staffers expressing frustration that they can't get a copy of the stimulus bill agreed to last night at a price of $789 billion. What's more, staffers are complaining about who does have a copy: K Street lobbyists. Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin asked the Congressional Budget Office to figure out what the cost of the pork bill will be if its 20 "most popular" provisions--I'm not sure how those were identified, but the list includes sacred cows like Head Start--are kept in place for ten years. The answer: $3.27 trillion. Which implies either mind-boggling debt or major tax increases.