Disclosing only a little

Gene Sperling offers some money-saving, I mean, money-spending tips. On the Medicare front, he says:

Drug-bill costs and health care: When it became clear, belatedly, that the projected costs of the prescription drug bill had ballooned to $100 billion a year, shouldn't that have provoked questions about what even a small fraction of that money could have done if used elsewhere? For $5 billion we could create a system of refundable health insurance tax credits for small businesses, reducing health insurance costs for 13.3 million Americans. With an additional $15 billion a year, we could offer health insurance to nearly all of the 9 million American children who lack it.

What he doesn't tell you, of course, is that his own party's alternative to the Medicare drug bill would have cost significantly more than what President Bush signed.