Manzi Bait

The CBO has tallied the fiscal cost of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill. Felix Salmon summarizes:

The CBO has now costed out the Waxman-Markey act, and has come to the conclusion that over the 10 years from 2010 to 2019, it would raise $846 billion, spend $821 billion, and cost another $50 billion or so in discretionary spending. In other words, it’s at best fiscally flat, and quite possibly will actually cost the government money.

So much for controlling the deficit with cap and trade revenues. This news makes the need for entitlement shearing or perhaps a VAT all the more pressing. More pressing than Obama would like.