Daniel Gross writes in Slate What Bush Learned From Enron – How to hide an $87 billion debt by pretending it’s off the books.
Of course the point here is not so much that we shouldn’t spend the (now) necessary money in Iraq but that the full, or growing, pricetag was hidden off the books in order to make additional tax cuts and pursue other longtime Republican fiscal plans, regardless of the health of the economy or the federal books.
As Gross puts it
The process of exceeding spending caps with supplemental measures is a little like an overweight person going to a dietitian and dutifully agreeing to adhere to a strict daily intake of 1,800 calories in three meals – and then eating a supplemental cheese steak to feed the emergency hunger pangs that set in every afternoon. And then charging the food to his kid’s credit card.
It ain’t just Krugman noticing this stuff.