Government math: It's so much you really don't want to know

A conservative friend tells me: "The trillion-dollar stimulus-bailout plan won't work. Do the math."

A liberal friend tells me: "Without the trillion-dollar stimulus-bailout plan, the economy is doomed. Do the math."

Both of my friends are what I consider to be sharp cookies. But which one should I believe?

There's only one way to find out: Do the math.

Here goes.

The first stimulus-bailout spending scheme, passed by Congress last year and signed by President Bush, involves a total outlay of somewhere between $629 billion and $1.3 trillion. The amount depends on which government expert you ask. But we've gotten used to calling it the $800 billion plan, so why don't we stick with that? It's a nice, round number.

Then there's the second stimulus-bailout plan, passed by Congress last week and which should have President Obama's signature by now. The estimated cost of this plan is somewhere between $793 billion and $1.3 trillion. It's anybody's guess, really. So let's use the figure we grown so accustomed to: $800 billion.

By my math, we're at $1.6 trillion so far. $800 billion plus $800 billion ... .

President Obama and others say it likely will take a third massive infusion of government spending to right the nation's economy. This could cost another $500 billion to $1.3 trillion, but for purposes of this illustration, let's use good old $800 billion. If I'm doing the math correctly, we will be at $2.4 trillion at some point in the not-too-distant future.

So far all I've done is basic third-grade math. When you're spending trillions of dollars, however, you can pretty well bet that some of the math will be done by eighth-graders, or even folks with doctorates in economics. When that happens, you can't use simple figures like $800 billion, or simple addition, or even elementary multiplication.

No, when you get the big guns, economically speaking, involved, you've got to think bureaucratically and monumentally extravagantly.

(Please note how complicated math requires six-syllable words -- or more -- as the price tax balloons.)

Which means you can scrap the $800 billion figure. That was just window dressing from the start. Knowing how government works, we should have started with the $1.3 trillion figure. Times three. Which brings us to $3.9 trillion we're really committing to saving our economy.

That, of course, is the base figure. Now come the add-ons.

Add-on No. 1: Overruns. This is the government spending all this money. It always goes way over budget. Look at any federal project you can think of. What was the original cost estimate? What did it actually cost?

This is the First Law of Government Spending. "Whatever something should cost, double it." In my little illustration today, that puts us at $7.8 trillion for the stimulus-bailout plan. So far.

Add-on No. 2: Unexpected expenses. Who knows what sinkholes are likely to show up on the economic landscape as we start to stimulate and bail out to the tune of nearly $8 trillion? (Note regarding government math: Always round up.)

Just when you think you've got the banks straightened out, along comes something you weren't expecting. Something like The Earthquake or The Electric Grid Meltdown or The Mad Cow Outbreak. Any of these could crush the economic recovery.

So add about $3 trillion for contingencies. It's the only prudent thing to do.

Add-on No. 3: Finance charges. Every American alive knows how much it costs to borrow money. The $11 trillion the stimulus-bailout will cost can't be paid out of petty cash. We don't have enough in savings to foot the bill either. If we did, we'd use it to pay off the national debt, which is ... well, looky here. It's $11 trillion too. There's a certain symmetry to government math, isn't there?

What kind of interest rate do you think the U.S. government qualifies for? Right now a solid borrower with a really high credit score might be able to get a preferred rate of 5 percent or so. But the federal government isn't exactly what I'd call the most creditworthy borrower. This being a risky loan, the rate would have to be somewhere between 10 and 27.5 percent, which is about the same as what most credit cards are offering.

So let's assume the U.S. is going to put this stimulus-bailout on its Visa card and make minimum payments. That will add about $2.2 trillion in annual interest expense at a generous interest rate of 15 percent.

Add-on No. 4: Miscellaneous expenses. There are always costs that are completely unpredictable.

For example, no one seems to have given any thought to how much the federal payroll will have to increase to handle the stimulus-bailout.

President Obama says this latest round of spending will generate 4 million jobs. Surely he wasn't including the 3.5 million new federal employees it will take to administer the stimulus-bailout. Was he?

If it costs $11 trillion to create 4 million jobs, then my math says it would cost $9.6 trillion to create 3.5 million new bureaucrats.

Let's see. $11 trillion plus $9.6 trillion equals ... .

Ow! My head is really hurting.

Why, you might be asking, are we going so fast down this road to economic recovery at such a tremendous cost?

There is a simple answer: national forests.

As long as we have trees, we can make pulp. And if we can make pulp, we can print money. And if we can print money, we can do just about anything we please.

That, my friends, is how it all starts to add up when you do government math.

jsullivan@semissourian.com