If a Democratic presidential candidate had no idea how much the U.S. spent on defense (suppose they said $3.5 trillion a year) or the size of our armed forces (suppose they said 9 million) would that just pass without comment in a major newspaper? Somehow, I don't think so. Any competent reporter would be immediately grilling the candidate or their staff to find out how out of touch with reality the person really is. Why then is Fred Thompson quoted in the WSJ as saying that the Medicare prescription drug benefit added $72 trillion to country's obligations, without any explanation to readers that Mr. Thompson is off by a factor of seven. The projections of the cost of the Medicare Part D over an infinite horizon are less than $10 trillion. (Before anyone gets too concerned about even this seemingly large number [approximate 1.0 percent of future income], remember that it is driven by the assumption that the government will forever continue to grant patent monopolies that allow the drug companies to charge ever higher prices, instead of adopting a modern system for financing drug research. If we fix the system, all drugs can be sold at $4 per prescription.)
--Dean Baker
