Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director Peter Orszag testifying before House Budget Committee on Wednesday: At this time, given the lack of specificity regarding how the program would be implemented and even what asset classes would be purchased, CBO cannot provide a meaningful estimate of the ultimate net cost of the Administration's proposal. The Secretary would have the authority to purchase virtually any asset, at any price, and sell it at any future date; the lack of specificity regarding how that authority would be implemented makes it impossible at this point to provide a quantitative analysis of the net cost to the federal government. That's no way to run a government. Let's hope that whatever plan Congress comes up with that it gives the CBO at least a vague notion of how much a Wall Street bailout is going to cost. Image by Flickr user Criterion used under a Creative Commons license