Just when you thought that government spending was out of control, we’ve now learned that the actual cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) isn’t the $700 billion that was reported. The total risk to taxpayers actually approaches $3 trillion.

The special inspector general appointed to oversee the bailout package, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), said that the $700 billion does not include the additional financing and associated programs run by the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Once it is all added together, the $700 billion sum balloons to $2.9 trillion in taxpayer commitments.

The federal government, and the central bank in particular, have set up a series of additional funding programs that boost the total government commitment to well in excess of $10 trillion. The programs under the inspector general’s jurisdiction, however, amount to $2.9 trillion.

“$2.9 trillion is just short of what the entire federal government spent in fiscal year 2008,” said Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.). “It’s like having a second United States government budget, dedicated solely to saving the financial system. And that is truly surreal.”

Indeed. And yet the spending train from Bush’s successor is going full speed ahead. The Obama Administration is proposing $2 trillion for climate change programs, $1.5 trillion for health care, has spent about $1 trillion on a stimulus…and we’re just two months into his presidency.

Since when did Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe become our nation’s economic idol?

via hah.