Mover Mike

The prescription drug benefit bill from last year alone added more than $10 trillion in government outlays with one stroke of the pen. I recently asked Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin what the total unfunded liability is for the long term with respect to the prescription drug bill. His answer: "It is infinite." Too big to be counted or calculated. This Republican bill may have been the most financially irresponsible legislation of the last 30 years.

Treasury Secretary John Snow recently announced that the total unfunded liabilities of the United States government total $80 trillion ($80,000,000,000,000). Ouch! That's a debt load equivalent to about six times our current GDP. It is almost twice as much as the value of all goods and services produced everywhere in the world last year. And it is more money than has been earned by every American cumulatively since the Mayflower landed here 500 years ago.(emphasis added)