Tab for 100 hours

Over on The Hill Blog, Rep. Dave Weldom has summarized a conservative calculation of how much the new Congress has cost us so far.

The Democrats’ much-hyped First 100 Hours are finally over. But not before the party’s high rolling leadership turned on the Washington money machine.  If the ensuing hours of their majority are as expensive, American taxpayers may want to hide their wallets…

Just how much money in new spending did the Democrats’ first 100 hours cost American taxpayers?

– The new Pay-As-You-Go House rule locks-in $280 billion in automatic increases in federal government spending over the next two years.
-The 9/11 security bill could potentially cost “hundreds of billions annually” in wasteful spending, according to the Washington Post.  Let’s conservatively assume $100 billion.
– The energy package contains $15 billion in higher taxes and $15 billion in new spending (While the direct costs to the federal government would be minimal, the costs of the minimum wage bill to the private sector would be $16.5 billion over five years, and the costs to state and local governments would be $1 billion).
– The school loan bill would add $7 billion in additional spending.

Total cost (conservative estimate) of Democrats’ 100 Hour $pending $pree = Over $400 Billion.

Just keeping tabs.

Good thing about this blog is that anybody on the Hill can post to it, so you get an inside look at what’s going on there, in “The People’s House.”