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Bush Credibility Crisis. Truly disturbing analysis from Bruce Bartlett. Quotable:

Today, Congress can get all the budgetary detail it wants from CBO. Moreover, it is required by law only to use CBO estimates of the cost of budgetary proposals when considering them. Sadly, this became a loophole that the Bush administration was able to exploit to get its ill-conceived Medicare drug bill passed.

The administration knew that Congress' budget resolution provided only $400 billion over 10 years to pay for the drug benefit. Even a penny higher and theoretically the bill would have been subject to a point of order that would have delayed its passage. Any figure much larger than $400 billion would have killed it entirely.

Therefore, it was very disturbing when The New York Times reported on Jan. 30 that the Bush administration's internal estimate was that the drug bill passed by Congress would actually cost $534 billion over 10 years. There is absolutely no question that if Congress had known this figure, the bill would have gone down to defeat ..

And this:

This brings us to the most important chapter in President Bush's budget, one titled "Stewardship." Buried in an appendix volume where reporters are unlikely to notice, it paints a chilling picture of long-term budgetary trends. It shows federal spending rising from about 20 percent of the gross domestic product this year to 53 percent in 2080.