AND SO IT BEGINS – AT 7:03 P.M. ET:  During the health-care debate, opponents of Obamacare warned that the bill would gradually increase over time to far beyond the cheerful predictions.  We didn't think the process would start this soon.  From Fox:

President Obama's new health care law could potentially add at least $115 billion more to government health care spending over the next 10 years, congressional budget referees said Tuesday.

If Congress approves all the additional spending called for in the legislation, it would push the 10-year cost of the overhaul above $1 trillion -- an unofficial limit the Obama administration set early on.

The Congressional Budget Office said the added spending includes $10 billion to $20 billion in administrative costs to federal agencies carrying out the law, as well as $34 billion for community health centers and $39 billion for Indian health care.

The costs were not reflected in earlier estimates by the budget office, although Republican lawmakers strenuously argued that they should have been. Part of the reason is technical: the additional spending is not mandatory, leaving Congress with discretion to provide the funds in follow-on legislation -- or not.

"Congress does not always act on authorizations that are put into legislation by drafters," explained Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the White House budget agency. "Authorizations for discretionary spending are not expenditures."

COMMENT:  That's nonsense.  The Democrats will demand those new expenditures, if they have the power to do so, because their base will demand them. 

As the song from "Gypsy" goes, "You Gotta Have a Gimmick."  What we see here is a world-class gimmick.

May 10, 2010