But see, he says, it all depends on where you start counting. If you start counting before the program actually kicks in, you get that nice, worthless deficit-neutral number that CBO found. If you start counting when you’re supposed to start counting, you get the fiscal equivalent of a 50-car pile-up. Why Republicans don’t mock this idiot illogic by applying it to the surge in Afghanistan, I don’t know. If we start counting next summer, Obama’s not actually sending any new troops, is he? See how easy it is make the left happy?

Consider this post, including the clip below, a follow-up to my point last night about The One’s ridiculous hand-wringing over spending another $30 billion for new troops next year in a cause he himself insists is essential to America’s national security. For comparison, we’ll spend roughly three times as much as that on health care in the very first year that Reid’s bill would go into full effect, before the costs start to spiral towards the heavens. And unlike Afghanistan, there’s no timeline for this mission: That’s the point of the clip, as budget honcho Peter Orszag explains that health-care efficiencies are really more of a decades-long project, assuming that the cost-saving measures he has in mind will even work. Which they might not. Click the image to watch.