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Conor Clarke

Conor Clarke - Conor Clarke is the editor, with Michael Kinsley, of Creative Capitalism. He was previously a fellow at The Atlantic and an editor at The Guardian. More

Conor Clarke is the editor, with Michael Kinsley, of Creative Capitalism, an economics blog that was recently published in book form by Simon and Schuster. He was previously a fellow at The Atlantic and an editor at The Guardian. He is also on Twitter.

The Cost of the Reagan Centennial

By Conor Clarke
Feb 19 2009, 5:02 PM ET Comment

Eager for stimulus news, I have tried to obsessively follow the release of Congressional Budget Office cost estimates. And I see that the CBO released a bunch of new estimates last night, though they had nothing to do with the stimulus package. There was, for instance, a cost estimate of House concurrent resolution 37 (pdf) -- a resolution "authorizing the use of the Capitol grounds for the Greater Washington Soap Box Derby." The CBO estimates that this would "result in no significant cost to the federal government." Who knew?

One cost estimate that I thought was interesting, however, was for H.R. 131 (pdf) -- which would would "establish a commission to plan, develop, and coordinate the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of former President Ronald Reagan on February 6, 2011." Setting up this commission will apparently cost the federal government $1 million. How would Ronald Reagan feel about that?



I also see that H.R. 131 was sponsored by Rep. Elton Gallegly, who voted against what he rather creatively called the "Non-Stimulus Act," arguing that it went light on tax cuts "in order to increase government spending."
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