The easiest promise to make is the one you don’t think you’ll have to keep. A few years back the government issued accounting rules that made corporations put future retiree healthcare costs on their books. It wasn’t pretty. Now governments will have to do the same, and it won’t be any prettier. And of course the cry will go up to nationalize healthcare, which won’t lower the cost, but shift it to the federales, who are already looking at (I sure hope it’s a misprint) 33.4 trillion dollar unfunded liability for Medicare. I guess the state and locals will figure that any increase from their liability won’t be noticed in that eye popping figure.

Via Winterspeak at Asymetrical Information.