Do I Hear $500 Billion

420 billion, 420 billion! Going once, going twice, 450 billion! Do I hear 475? 450 billion going once, going–$480 billion! Do I hear $500 billion?

AB

P.S. Technically, the auction should have started around $250 billion, corresponding to the administration’s projections back in February.

P.P.S. And what’s this about: “To placate some lawmakers (Republicans as well as Democrats) worried about huge deficits in the years ahead, some tax cuts are supposed to expire a decade or so from now.” The sunsets are coming sooner than that. Many of the cuts — e.g., the estate tax and the educational savings account deduction (529 plans) — sunset in 2010 (so Bush could distort downward the 10 year cost of his 2001 tax cut), which is a lot nearer than a “decade or so”. The NYT lets too much slop like this through–give reporters access to Google and Lexis/Nexis and the make them use it.

P.P.P.S. What’s missing from the list in the concluding paragraph of the story?

As recently as early 2000, some economic experts foresaw surpluses for many years ahead. Then the stock market collapsed, the country was attacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, and costly wars unfolded in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It’s on the tip of my tongue, I feel like it rhymes with “bax mutts”, …