Bigger and Better
A New York Times news analysis - that means it comes tinged by the Times' anti-Bush agenda and may also include portions that are fabricated - says the tax cut that is poised to pass Congress will actually cost the U.S. treasury more than $800 billion over the next decade, not the $320 billion advertised cost.

The $320 billion figure, which is expected to clear the Senate today, is artificial. No one expects that tax breaks for married couples and a bigger tax credit for children, popular features of the bill, will be allowed to expire after next year. This is what lawmakers call a sunset. It was put into the measure to hold down the 10-year cost. Nor, barring a political upheaval that puts Democrats in the White House and in control of Congress, is it likely that the lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains will be allowed to expire after 2008, another sunset in the bill. If these elements of the tax cut are calculated on a 10-year basis, the cost in lost revenue stands to be over $800 billion, more than what the president proposed, according to the first analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priority, a liberal research institute.

The NYT portrays this as a failure of the Democrats to block bad policy:

Bill Clinton might also have framed the tax cut as a choice from two things. You can cut taxes, or you get prescription drug coverage under Medicare. You can cut taxes, or you can save Social Security. At least that is the way he succeeded in blocking Republican tax cuts during his presidency. This year, Mr. Bush was helped by the fact that Democrats abandoned that approach and offered tax cuts of their own - smaller than Mr. Bush's, aimed at the middle class and not the wealthy, but tax cuts nonetheless. Democrats were never able to make the case that their way was the better way. For sure, this is not the last Bush tax cut. Under the legislation, popular tax relief like the $1,000 tax credit for each child and tax bonus for married couples are to expire at the end of 2004. Congress will not want to let them lapse in an election year. So be prepared for another tax bill next year.

Sounds good to me.