More entitlements.(Correction, Please!)(drug benefits for seniors)

ITEM: Reporter Campbell Brown, on NBC's Today show for June 11th, played down the size of a new entitlement being debated in Congress, extolling: "New hope for the 40 million seniors on Medicare. Next week the Senate is expected to pass a bipartisan plan finally adding a prescription drug benefit.... The cost of the plan is $400 billion. But advocates for seniors, like the powerful American Association for Retired Persons, say it's still not enough."

CORRECTION: Reporter Brown, like others in the media, frames the Medicare debate in a way that limits the question to whether President George W. Bush is proposing enough money ($400 billion over 10 years) for a prescription drug program for seniors. Left unsaid is whether the federal government should subsidize prescription drugs in the first place. Moreover, it is hard to imagine that any amount proposed by Bush would satisfy the Left, since no matter how much money he proposes to spend (for this entitlement program, or for any other), the Left consistently counters with an even more expensive proposal, making the president appear conservative by comparison.

But even assuming that Medicaid should spend $400 billion for a new prescription drug program, where would the money come from? As it is, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of $38.3 trillion, even without adding drug ...