The losses are going to be massive:

The $23.6 billion represents a 25 percent loss on the feds $60 billion direct “investment” in GM. But that’s not all that taxpayers are on the hook for. As I explained previously, Uncle Sam’s special GM bankruptcy package allowed the company to write off $45 billion in previous losses going forward. This could work out to as much as $15 billion in tax savings that GM wouldn’t have had had it gone through a normal bankruptcy. Why? Because after bankruptcy, the tax liabilities of companies increase since they have no more losses to write off.

This means that the total hit to taxpayers, who still own about a quarter of the company, could add up to $38.6 billion. That’s even more that the $34 billion on the outside I had predicted in May.

But it’s OK, ‘cuz the president’s campaign supporters got paid off.

JPet thinks that’s what Europe is.

…in the Netherlands.

The loss to the taxpayer for the auto bailouts is now up to twenty three billion.

[Update a few minutes later]

And the head of the CBO says that the “stimulus” will be a drag on the economy for years.

[Update a few more minutes later]

Thoughts on the health-care mess:

If the Supreme Court decision goes against the individual mandate, the progressive imagination will be haunted for decades by what historians will consider one of the great legislative and political blunders of all time. A rare perfect storm of political forces brought liberals the most power they have had since 1934 and 1964. If history records that this generation’s progressive leaders threw that moment of power away by an easily correctable mistake in legislative draftmanship, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be forever remembered as the greatest legislative bunglers in American history. College students in generations yet unborn will rub their eyes in disbelief when they get to this part of the story.

(Indeed, when we consider what future students will think about an era that includes the Lewinsky affair, the Y2K and bird flu panics, the WMD mistake in Iraq, and then, if the Court rules against it, the healthcare fiasco, it is easy to see why the Baby Boom is looking more and more like a generation of clowns.)

I am less worried about the bitter mockery of future generations, however, than I am about what is in the rest of the bill. Even if the Court upholds it, it is clear that sheer arrogance and legislative incompetence led the architects of this massive reform to endanger their own handiwork by clumsy design.

An inescapable question unavoidably follows. If the authors of this historic reform were that careless and clueless about the central pillar of their plan, what else did they get wrong? What other incompetencies and tomfooleries lie hidden in the depths of this bill? How many perverse and unintended consequences will emerge as the consequences of this law unfold? What clever lobbyists managed to get provisions embedded in the text that will make healthcare more expensive and less effective than it could and should have been?

Writing a bill that passes constitutional muster should be easy in a Congress so rich in lawyers and legislation writers. Writing a bill that successfully improves American healthcare delivery while controlling costs, on the other hand, is hard. Very, very hard.

If they did so poorly at the easy part of their task, the part where we can actually measure and monitor their success, what kind of mess have they made of the hard and murky parts that nobody, including the authors of the bill, really understands?

This may be the worst political class in the nation’s history, or at least since the 1850s.

This was their moment. This was their time.

The Obama record is one of almost undiluted failures. And no group of Americans have been hurt more by his failures than the poor, the weak and defenseless, and those living in the shadows of society. One might even say that compared to his predecessor — who said that our national character shines in our compassion; that we must be rich in justice and moral courage; and that Americans have always found our better selves in sympathy and generosity in our lives and in our laws — Obama has offered a vision of America where everybody is left to fend for themselves.

While taking away the tools with which to do so.

[Update a few minutes later]

To increase jobs, increase economic freedom.

But we can’t have that. Not enough opportunities for graft.

[Update a few minutes later]

Frank J. takes on the biggest fat cat of them all:

If you’re wondering where all our money went, look to the country’s only trillionaire, who is stroking his weird goat beard and laughing at us.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Uncle Sam earned his money, but he doesn’t. He’s never produced anything — he gets all his money through deception.

For instance, he said he was going to provide retirement savings for everyone, but the whole thing is a Ponzi scheme in which Uncle Sam constantly raids the funds while giving people a horrible return on their investments. He’s bilked people out of trillions with that scam; Bernie Madoff is a shoplifter by comparison.

He’s always looking for more ways to scam people, hiding fees everywhere. He even grabs money out of our paychecks and then gives us a small fraction back once a year as a “rebate” and expects us to be grateful.

You almost have to admire his shamelessness; he mugs you and expects you to thank him because he gave you back a dollar.

Uncle Sam has absolutely no appreciation for his unearned wealth and just spends it lavishly and pointlessly. A while back, people were criticizing how much he was spending on public-radio stations no one listens to, and his defense was that it was only $100 million. Only $100 million. Can you even imagine being so wealthy that $100 million is an inconsequential sum?

Next November, we get another opportunity to try to fix the problem.