Earmarks galore!

washingtonpost.com has the tally.

Note that the TARP bailout of GM triggered $10 billion in additional tax liabilities, which would have consumed the TARP bailout itself. An earmark was inserted without debate to remedy that little oversight. So keep in mind, whatever the nominal cost of the GM bailout, there's another $10 billion in deferred taxes.

Remember when the Congressional Budget Office confidently predicted that the bank bailout might cost as much as $25 billion? And there was only a 5% chance that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have to be nationalized, at a far greater cost? I blogged about it here. Seems so long ago, but it was just last summer. So far, that prediction is only two orders of magnitude too low, but we have a long way to go yet.

Now it looks like bailing out GM alone will cost more than CBO's first estimate on the magnitude of the financial crisis. I know why they keep putting out numbers, what I don't understand is why anyone pays attention.